Kalbi jjim

Whenever my extended family gathered for the holidays, I would always load up on the meat, no matter what it is or how it's made. We would always have a turkey (or rather I should say turkeys) for Thanksgiving every year, and the reason we usually had a few is because I have this awesome aunt who would invite all of our side of the family along with her side of the family, so she would have two families gathered under one roof. That's a lot of mouths to feed! And then like I mentioned in my previous blog, we would have some form of kalbi. One could grill the marinated kalbi or one could make a kalbi jjim! After getting married to my wonderful, fabulous, supportive husband Michael, we held our first family event at our home last Christmas, and granted, we did order most of the food, but I still needed help from my dear ole mother because it ain't easy feeding twenty plus mouths. 

So after consulting with my mother, and watching two different youtube videos, I came up with a  totally awesome kalbi jjim recipe. I'm still a newbie cook so please, any suggestions are welcome! And FYI: the word "jjim" means "to steam", so I will be steaming, or more like boiling the meat.

Kalbi jjim
Ingredients:
-2 lbs short rib beef
-8 cloves of garlic
-4-5 shiitake mushrooms (if dried, soak for 5-6 hours beforehand. If fresh, make sure to cut off the bottom end of the stem)
-2 large carrots, peeled and chopped into little ball shapes
-1 small radish, peeled and chopped into little ball shapes (no explanation here! That's what the youtube lady said to do AND my mother. If my mama says to make ball shapes, I'm going to make ball shapes. It mostly has to do with the presentation of the dish.)
- 1/2 an onion
-3 stems of green onion
-1 tbsp of ginger
-3 jujubes (again, soak!)
-5 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar
-2 c cold water
-sesame oil 
-black pepper

Directions:
1) In a large pot, bring water to a boil (enough to cover all the meat). Cut the beef so that there are large chunks of meat on the bone. Make little slices throughout the meat. Then soak in a large bowl of water.

2) Boil the meat for about 10 minutes. This will get rid of some of the fat. Then rinse the meat in cold water.

3) In a food processor or blender, mix in ginger, onion, and garlic. (In haste I accidentally added the green onion, but that's for later.)

4) In a large bowl, add the blended mixture to the cold water, along with the soy sauce and sugar. Stir.

5) Placing the meat into the dutch oven (which worked better for me; the meat didn't get as tough), add the bowl of soy sauce over medium heat.

6) After about 20 minutes, turn the heat down to low, and add the carrots, radish, mushrooms, and jujubes. Cook for another hour. Turn the meat every 15 minutes or so.
              **Notice the ball shaped radish and carrots?

7) Lastly, add the chopped green onion on top, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a sprinkle of black pepper.

                                                                            Enjoy!