Korean Barbeque

Many consider BBQ the quintessential Korean food, though a meal based around grilled meat has only become a common thing in my lifetime. Now, along with chimek (fried chicken and beer), it’s one of the most popular styles of eating out in the country. Koreans don’t say they are going to a Korean BBQ, per se—they usually say they are going to a gogi jip—a meat house!

This is not American BBQ, which is slow and low: This is thin and quick. A live coal fire (sut bul) is not necessary, but it is preferred by most. To that end, feel free to cook K-BBQ any way you can: on a park grill, on a tabletop electric grill from a Korean market, on a pan on the stove (with windows open and a fan on—there’s a lot of smoke!), or even in the broiler. In fact, before most Koreans owned ovens, we had little broilers, which we used for fish or meat. Koreans traditionally like their meat cooked through, but the really important thing is to get some char, a little caramelization, which you can achieve on any cooking surface.