Hello! Hi everyone. Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to Korean comfort food classics with a shot at a spicy BBQ bulgogi chicken. For those unfamiliar, the term “bulgogi” more broadly refers to a method of marinating and barbecuing in Korean cuisine, whereby our meats are iconically sliced super thin, and then marinated and grilled on a barbecue (or more often in home cooking, seared in a skillet). You may often come across bulgogi done with thinly sliced top cut sirloin or flank steak (and for those looking, we also dove into BBQ beef bulgogi in our gimbap and bibimbap recipes a while back). 

For our version today though, we’ll be taking a look at a similarly popular BBQ chicken bulgogi or “dak bulgogi,” done instead with some thinly sliced chicken thigh. Although a dak bulgogi is more commonly marinated with a sweet and savory soy sauce glaze (not unlike its red meat counterpart), today I thought I’d instead do our chicken with a spicy marinade, most prominently featuring a bit of gochugaru chili powder, and gochujang chili paste to give it its deeply red color. Hope you try it.

 

Serves 2-3

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 cloves garlic

  • 1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger

  • 3 green onions

  • 3 medium chicken thighs

  • kimchi

  • pickled daikon

  • peanut oil

INGREDIENTS (marinade)

  • 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar

  • 1 tbsp mirin

  • 1 tbsp brown sugar

  • 2 tbsp gochugaru

  • 4 tbsp gochujang

PREP

  • CRUSH and mince 4 cloves of garlic, set aside

  • MINCE ginger, set aside

  • SEPARATE the whites and greens of the green onions, then slice thinly, set aside

  • FLATTEN the chicken thigh with a meat mallet, then slice thinly

  • COMBINE all marinade ingredients, then combine with the chicken and let marinate for 3 minutes or up to 1 hour

ON THE STOVE

  • HEAT a wok as hot as possible, then add 4 tbsp peanut oil and long yao

  • ADD the marinated chicken and sear for 2 1/2 minutes, then toss and saute for an additional 1-2 minutes until cooked through and remove from heat

  • REHEAT the wok, then add the garlic, ginger, and whites of green onions and toss for 15 seconds until fragrant

  • ADD the chicken back to the wok and saute for an additional minute

  • SERVE over rice with kimchi and picked daikon, and finish with green onions

 

tagged with bulgogi, bulgogi chicken, spicy bulgogi chicken, dak bulgogi, korean bbq, korean bbq recipe, korean recipe, korean cooking, korean food, bulgogi recipe, woo can cook