Korean BBQ

<b><b>JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST • </b>A casual and practical guide to grilling with Korean-American flavors from chef Bill Kim of Chicago's award-winning bellyQ restaurants with 80 recipes tailored for home cooks with suitable substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients.</b><br><br>Born in Korea but raised in the American Midwest chef Bill Kim brings these two sensibilities together in <i>Korean BBQ</i> translating Korean flavors for the American consumer in a way that is friendly and accessible. This isn't a traditional Korean cookbook but a Korean-American one based on gatherings around the grill on weeknights and weekends. <br><br>Kim teaches the fundamentals of the Korean grill through flavor profiles that can be tweaked according to the griller's preference then gives an array of knockout recipes. Starting with seven master sauces (and three spice rubs) you’ll soon be able to whip up a whole array of recipes including Hoisin and Yuzu Edamame Kimchi Potato Salad Kori-Can Pork Chops Seoul to Buffalo Shrimp BBQ Spiced Chicken Thighs and Honey Soy Flank Steak. From snacks and drinks to desserts and sides <i>Korean BBQ</i> has everything you need to for a fun and delicious time around the grill. “Bill’s book is not only filled with great authentic recipes but it also tells the journey of how a classically trained cook in search of his heritage became an accomplished chef elevating and refining his own cuisine. In his recipes you’ll find the best of Korea’s most mystifying sauces vinegars rubs and infusions in a very approachable and delicious way to be understood by any home cook. It makes me want to invite myself over to Bill’s house for dinner!” <b>—Daniel Boulud chef/owner of The Dinex Group</b><br>  <br> “Bill Kim's restaurants are hands down my favorite local places to eat. It's not just the food (which is always great) it's the service. The hospitality. As you see in this book Chef Kim is all of us. His food as well as his story go a long way to showcase that. Made with equal parts love and soul you'll always leave with a full belly and a smile on your face. Being different is good AND delicious! <b>—CM Punk mixed martial artist</b><br><br> “It’s impossible not to fall in love with Bill Kim and of course his outrageously delicious food! With <i>Korean BBQ </i>Bill shares a little of the magic that makes his imaginative Korean-American cooking so special. Filled with drool-inducing recipes and infinite ways to combine them as well as life stories more relevant now than ever he’ll make you want get in the kitchen stir up a spicy fragrant new sauce and get grilling!” <b>—Gail Simmons food expert TV host and author of <i>Bringing It Home</i></b> Award-winning chef <b>Bill Kim</b> got his start in the restaurant industry and honed his culinary skills at world-renowned establishments Charlie Trotter's and Le Lan. Chef Kim would eventually venture out on his own in 2008 bringing his imaginative Asian-inspired cuisine to his highly acclaimed Chicago restaurants Urbanbelly bellyQ and Belly Shack. <br><br><b>Chandra Ram</b> is the editor of <i>Plate</i> magazine. Introduction<br><br>I became a Korean American on a cold winter day in 1977 when my family landed in Chicago after emigrating from Seoul South Korea. My parents decided to move us to America because they were worried for my brother and me. They wanted us to have more options and opportunities and thought America would provide them. But I didn’t understand any of that when we arrived in Chicago. I was seven years old I didn’t speak the language and I missed my friends in Seoul. In America I was an alien: no one looked like me. I was miserable and I just wanted to go back home.<br><br>I ditched my first day of school in Chicago. I grabbed my brother who was six and a book my Korean friends had filled with messages for me before we left and we hid all day in the basement of the store where my family worked. Later we found out the whole school had been looking for us and I got into a lot of trouble. I had to apologize to the entire class and to the principal. After that my parents took me to school every day for the rest of the year. They didn’t trust me not to run away again.<br><br>I hated school that first year. I didn’t understand what the teachers or other kids said to me or what I was supposed to say to them. And then there was my name! My Korean name was Bum-Suk (and my brother’s was Yu-Suk). Imagine going to elementary school and trying to fit in and make friends with names like that! All I wanted was a regular American name. That part of my childhood was hard but I also cherish it in a strange way because it’s part of who I am today.<br><br>There were maybe only two other Asian kids in the whole school. I had to learn everything: currency directions to the bathroom even how to say hello. But slowly it got better and a year later when more Korean immigrants came to our school I was the one helping them get acclimated and guiding them through life in America. I didn’t want them to go through the same trauma I had and it made me happy to help others avoid it. When you are alone in a new country and then finally see someone who looks like you and understands where you come from it’s very comforting.<br><br>The experience was intense but it showed me that if I could conquer a new school a new language and a new country I could do anything. I got through it and learned that the world isn’t so bad and that I could make it even better for others.<br><br>After living briefly with my aunt Janet my parents rented a store and our family lived in the back in one big room. We slept on mattresses on the floor and cooked on a hot plate; it wasn’t too different from how we lived in Korea. We didn’t feel bad for ourselves; it was just what we had and we were perfectly fine with it. I earned extra money by picking up glass bottles to turn in for the nickel deposits.<br><br>I had some responsibilities as the oldest of five kids in the household (which included my three cousins) some of which were about food. <br><br>When we cooked and ate at home our food was Korean with a lot of American touches. I had done a little bit of cooking before we left Seoul including cooking my first cup of instant ramen over <i>seogtan</i> (burning coals) when I was just six. (Yes my mom let me cook it without anybody helping me. Just remembering how dangerous that was makes me laugh. A little crazy huh?)<br><br>My first kitchen duty in America was roasting sesame seeds and grinding them with a mortar and pestle for my mother’s kimchi. Another of my jobs was carefully waving sheets of dried seaweed over an open gas flame to toast them for our snack. (Sometimes I’d put them in our toaster.) Also every afternoon after school I had to wash the rice let it soak and remember to press the button on the rice cooker so the rice would be ready when my parents got home.<br><br>But making our after-school snack was my real specialty. The fridge was loaded with honey ham roast beef bologna and American cheese slices. Coming from Korea where we didn’t eat sandwiches aside from the rare luxury of a butter and sugar sandwich having so many choices was heaven and meant that I could make sandwiches with all of the meats. I still make them today; at our restaurants we call it “phat style.” I also had an infatuation with hot dogs: I ate them with rice nori buns English muffins anything as long as there was tons of ketchup and I still can’t eat a hot dog without ketchup. (In Chicago people go crazy if you eat hot dogs with ketchup so I pretend the ketchup is for the fries but use it for the hot dogs. But keep that quiet!) I didn’t know it then but those early days of caring for my family with food was when I began the process of becoming a chef.<br><br>But my best food memories are from when we would get together with other Korean families to barbecue in the park. We were doing the most American thing setting up grills playing games chasing one another and cooking food but our food was Korean. We were acclimating but slowly.<br><br>As we settled into life in Chicago we moved around the city a bit each time learning about other cultures from our neighbors. We lived between an Indian neighborhood and a Jewish neighborhood in an area where a lot of immigrants had landed. There were people there from all over the world but we accepted one another. Then we moved to an Italian neighborhood. I remember the neighbors thought we were crazy when my mom strung fish on the clothesline attached to the pear tree in the front yard to dry them right next to our clothes. To fertilize the garden she buried fish heads in the soil—they had to be buried deeply to keep the flies away— and put crushed eggshells on top. Mom loved her garden; she grew sesame leaves (also known as perilla) Korean chilies and little Kirby cucumbers to make kimchi.<br><br>I had a great time living in that house. My best friend Tony Bruno lived nearby and we’d go to his house after school. Tony’s family was as Italian as mine was Korean but there were some similarities. Neither of our mothers spoke English so we both understood what it was like to be the kid who had to translate conversations for his mom. Tony’s family had a garden like ours but they grew tomatoes. Instead of drying fish on a clothesline they would dry salt and cure their tomatoes in wicker baskets under the sun. They even made their own wine (which of course Tony and I tried a few times). Looking back I realize that Tony’s life was like mine just based in a different culture. It might have been fish drying out back at my house and tomatoes drying at his house but we were both immigrant kids trying to figure out how to fit in and what it meant to be an American.<br><br>I got used to life in Chicago but I never really felt like I fully assimilated especially at school which wasn’t for me; I was a very average student. In my junior year school became a scary place for me because that was when a lot of my friends picked the college they wanted to attend. Where was I going to get in? What would I major in? How was my family going to afford college? I had no idea. I went to the college night at the local junior college and saw the banners for all of the Ivy League schools—Harvard Yale Princeton and Brown. I was about to walk out when I saw a giant white-and-blue wedding cake in the middle of the room topped with a man in a blue tuxedo next to a bride. At first I thought it was weird that someone was getting married at a college but as I approached the cake a representative from a culinary school asked me if I was interested in cooking. That was when I realized the cake was decorated to match the logo of the school.<br><br>A school for cooking? Was this for real? I had a million questions. What did I have to do to get in? What did my GPA need to be? How much did it cost? Even with all of these questions I was relieved that I had found a path I wanted to walk. And I only found it after noticing that wedding cake. If I hadn’t seen it I don’t know if I would be cooking today.<br><br>When I told my parents I wanted to attend culinary school they were very supportive but at the same time had no clue what that meant. I think they were just glad that I was going to get a degree in something. I decided to first enroll in the culinary training program at the local junior college to save money and to stay close to home. No one I knew went to cooking school so I was scared about wasting money and this was an easy way to make sure a career in cooking was right for me. But once I started my classes I knew I had found my calling. I went to class and inhaled the smell of paprika and of onions caramelizing in a pan. Those smells the chaos of the day tasting all of the food—it was a dream come true. Don’t get me wrong; it was hard work. But I knew this was something I could make a career out of while following my passion for food.