Every Monday and Wednesday night this winter, HUDS is serving mouthwatering, traditional Asian dishes in the Houses and Annenberg. While Monday-night Peking chicken is a brand new offering and Wednesday-night Korean barbeque is a time-honored student favorite, both dishes are on the menu this winter to give students a taste of delicious historical cuisines.
Peking chicken was introduced this winter in response to student feedback provided on a recent survey. The chicken is served with mu shu pancakes, hoisin sauce, chopped scallions, Peking-style tofu, and sliced cucumbers. Vegetarians can omit the chicken from the dish for a tasty meal, while vegans are encouraged to eat everything except the chicken and the mu shu pancakes.
Peking chicken is a variant of the traditional dish Peking duck, which has been prepared in China since the Yuan dynasty ruled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries C.E., according to ABC’s wesbite. By the early fifteenth century, Chinese chefs had refined the flavor of the dish, which soon became a dish of choice among royalty in the Ming Dynasty, ABC’s website said.
Bejing chefs have traditionally prepared the dish by cooking the meat enough to blaze the skin, hanging the meat up to dry, and allowing the fat to drip to one side, according to Otto Y. Chang, who is the manager of Royal East Restaurant at 729 Main Street in Cambridge. Change said the dried meat is then roasted until it is crispy. The cooked meet is next sliced at an angle to create three layers of skin, fat, and meat, and then wrapped in a dry pancake to soak up the fat. In America, however, chefs remove the fat from the meat “to accommodate the American taste,” Chang said.
Korean beef barbeque was served by HUDS in Winter 2010, and has returned to the menu every winter ever since. This winter, we’re serving Korean barbeque with a twist by alternating between beef and pork versions of the dish each Wednesday night. We’re serving new pork Korean BBQ on Feb. 1, Feb. 15, and Feb. 29, and we’re offering classic beef Korean BBQ on Jan. 25, Feb. 8, Feb. 22, and Mar. 7. Both versions of the dish will be served with accompaniments of sticky rice, leaf lettuce, Korean pickled cucumber, chopped scallions, kimchee, and ssamjang sauce. The dish can be eaten without meat for a delicious vegan or vegetarian alternative.
Also known as bulgogi, or “fire-meat,” the dish dates back to dates back to the second and third centuries B.C.E., according to Professor of Korean cuisine Kim Yong-moon in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Yong-moon told the WSJ that the Maek people who lived in southern Korea at that time first cooked a dish called maekjeok by skewering marinated meat over a fire.
A few centuries later, a more recognizable form of Korean barbeque emerged in the Koguryo Kingdom in Korea, according to the website of the Korean food company CJ. Although the dish saw a decline when vegetarian Buddhists took power in Korea, the Mongol invasions of Korea in the thirteenth century and the subsequent rise of the Chosun Dynasty restored Korean barbeque’s popularity, CJ’s website said.
Korean barbeque is traditionally prepared with very thin sliced ribeye beef marinated in a Korean soy sauce and oil, according to Ilsun Kwon, who is the manager of the restaurant Koreana at 158 Prospect Street in Cambridge. Kwon said that after marinating overnight, the beef is grilled and served with rice and bean paste sauce. The contents, she said, should be wrapped up, and eaten in a lettuce leaf. Kwon suggests eating the dish with sides of onions, mushrooms, green pepper, raw garlic, scallion salad, seaweed salad, bean sprouts, watercress, pickled radish, tofu, or fishcakes. According to Kwon, the best Korean barbeque has a sweetness that complements, but does not overwhelm, the taste of the beef.
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