The Korean beef side-dish Tteok GalBi is a very tasty dish that is a good representative of Korean food flavor. Tteok means sticky rice cakes and galbi is a marinated Korean meat dish. However, you will find out that there is no sticky rice cakes in this recipe. So then, why it is called “Tteok Galbi?” The original Galbi dish uses beef or pork ribs. Tteok galbi has a similar taste with galbi, however, the texture is like sticky rice cakes because it has ground beef and other vegetables in it. Many people love bulgogi or galbi. The soy sauce and sweet flavor mixed with garlic, green onion, and sesame oil makes this dish very flavorful. This recipe can have a strong garlic or onion flavor, so if you don’t like them much, you can reduce the amount. It will be a good dish for a party.

Short Korean Lesson: *^^*

• AhNae (아내) = Wife
• NamPyun (남편) = Husband

Main Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Beef
• 1 Small Size Onion
• 1 Carrot (2.5 oz)
• 3 Finely chopped Green Onions
• 6 Garlic Cloves

Seasoning Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 1½ Tbsp Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• ½ tsp Black Pepper
• 1 Tbsp Cooking Wine (Optional)
• ¼ tsp Salt (Optional)

Yield: 25 Tteok Galbi Pieces

Prepare 1 lb of ground beef.

Prepare 1 small onion, 1 carrot, and 6 garlic cloves. Chop the onion and carrot a little before grinding.

Grind the vegetables for few seconds in a food processor. We will grind them with the beef later, so it doesn’t have to be that fine.

Slowly add some of the ground beef and grind them until they become like a dough.

The mixture is supposed to be like dough.

In a bowl, combine the meat mixture and all of the ingredients for the seasoning: 4 Tbsp of soy sauce, 1½ Tbsp of sugar, 2 Tbsp of honey, 1 Tbsp of sesame oil, ½ tsp of black pepper, 1 Tbsp of cooking wine (Optional), and 3 finely chopped green onions.

Kneed all of the ingredients for about 2 minutes, this will help blend the various tastes together with a consistent texture.

Take a golf ball sized beef mixture, round it, and flat it.

In slightly oiled nonstick pan, place the tteok galbi. Fry it on medium. It is important not to cook it on high because it will burn very easily. In this step, you can fry only one piece to taste. Try it, and depending on your taste, you can add ¼ tsp of salt as I did. It’s optional.

Once the juice comes out from the meat, flip it over and press it with a spatula. Reduce the temperature to medium-low.

Occasionally flip them over but not too often. Fry them until the both sides of the galbi become nicely browned. Fry them with patience, no high temperatures!

If this recipe is too big for you to finish, keep some in a freezer as I did. It is good to use wax paper.

Keep them in a freezer bag. When you eat them later, just take out them out of the freezer and fry them. In that case, start to cook from a low temperature and later, once the juice comes out, increase the temperature to medium.

It tastes great with rice, but you can eat them with whatever you like. I’m thinking about putting them on my salad next time. Enjoy!