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L.A.'s known for great Korean barbecue.
GIADA: Whoo, baby!
MAN: Oh, man. This soup is money.
This is straight barbecue.
I'm full, but I can't stop eating.
And I got a personal tasting tour
from the expert himself, Chef Roy Choi.
Korean food is all about
just, like, not being polite, you know?
[ Laughter ]
And I was so inspired, I decided to make my own version at home.
Vegetarian Korean noodles -- light cellophane noodles
tossed with colorful veggies and Asian spice.
Kimchi pancakes -- two popular Korean side dishes
combined into one perfect bite.
Spicy sesame bok choy --
a simple, fresh Korean salad with a kick of heat.
Korean BBQ beef -- a Korean taco,
grilled rib eye served in a crispy lettuce cup.
An epic adventure right at home.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Roy Choi is L.A.'s pride and joy.
ROY: This is, like, my expression of being Korean.
It's a little bit of just, like, there you go.
[ Laughs ]
GIADA: Born in South Korea and raised in Los Angeles,
he was a rebellious kid who rolled with a tough crowd.
My life was kind of falling apart.
I had a lot of addictions and I just --
I was drinking them all away, you know?
Nobody wanted to be around me.
Everything around me was, like, up in flames.
Hey, hey. Welcome back.
Emeril Lagasse here, cooking up some new chicken dishes, huh?
ROY: I saw Emeril when I was 25.
It was his first show, called "Essence of Emeril."
When I saw that show, I don't know,
I just felt like he was really, really talking to me.
And I felt, like, this connection,
like this is something I could do.
But more than that, I just felt, like,
a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.
And then that's when everything came together.
Culinary school was after Emeril.
Young cook learning all the basics and the foundations.
Almost 10 years of learning and finding my style.
Then I lost it all.
Got laid off.
Then my friend called me and he said he had this idea
for putting Korean barbecue in a taco.
And then again, like Emeril, it was just, like,
a light at the end of the tunnel.
[ Horn honks ]
And that was the inspiration for Kogi.
GIADA: Roy's known for bringing his famous taco
to the streets of L.A.
ROY: It's a combination of an L.A. street taco
and Korean barbecue.
So, it's those ingredients,
but then when you bit into it, it tasted like Los Angeles --
a Los Angeles that we had never tasted before,
but when you tasted it, it felt so familiar.
He's building old school right here,
barbecued short ribs.
Doing barbecued vegetables over here.
GIADA: Now a successful restaurateur,
author, and even a movie producer,
Roy's credited with shining a light
on the rich food culture of L.A.'s Koreatown.
ROY: Sometimes, you get lucky.
Like some salmon make it through, you know what I mean?
And that's what happened with Kogi.
I just had my head down, cooking.
Every time I looked up, the line got bigger,
got bigger, got bigger.
GIADA: Todd and I have always enjoyed Korean barbecue,
and I wanted to learn more.
So I reached out to the one and only Roy Choi
for an exciting and truly authentic culinary experience.
First stop, a Korean market
to learn more about key ingredients and flavors.
Welcome to Assi.
This is all just traditional fruits and American vegetables.
And then the moment you see the garlic
is when it starts to change, you know?
Oh...
That's something Italians and Koreans have in common,
is all the garlic we use.
"Hot pepper powder."
That's the basis of kimchi.
That is a heck of a lot of chili powder.
Yeah.
If you have this, garlic, Napa cabbage, salt,
you can make kimchi no problem.
So, this is the kimchi section.
It's, like, the most famous Korean ingredient around.
This is the one I see most often.
Most often is the Napa-cabbage kimchi.
It gets your whole digestive system excited.
It opens it up.
Then you're ready for the onslaught.
Another big part of Korean food is the meat section.
The thinly sliced beef
that you basically can't get anywhere else.
ROY: The marbling, yeah.
Yeah, and that marbling.
These are the fresh noodles.
Just really simple, water and flour salt noodles.
I've seen and worked with these bags of big noodles.
Dried ones? Yeah, let's go check them out.
So, these are mung-bean Korean vermicelli noodles.
They're really nice.
My daughter loves them.
They've got a great snap to them.
This one you don't see in American markets.
It's a bucket full of pork belly.
[ Laughs ]
[ Laughs ]
♪ Shakin' on the west side ♪
♪ Californ-i-a ♪
GIADA: Time to stuff our faces.
Roy and a couple of his friends
wanted to treat me to a true Korean barbecue.
ROY: Took Giada to a Korean barbecue,
which is a gateway for Korean food.
Get her clothes smelling and just put her right in the mix.
You know a place is good
when the chair kind of slides on the floor.
MAN: Everything slides.
Yeah, it's like -- it's the grease.
You know a place is, like, super Korean
when they just have like four different types of kimchi.
Like, water kimchi, the spicy one.
Korean food is all about
just, like, not being polite, you know?
GIADA: Okay, great.
There's, like, reaching over, you know.
Yeah, that's true. People do reach over.
Enjoying the meal, you know, to the fullest extent.
They cook the meat and then you put it like a taco,
and then you put the little things inside
and you roll it up and eat it.
Yeah, the little side dishes.
Spinach.
The radish kimchi.
That's soybean paste.
Whoo, baby.
ROY: Yeah, that's, like, the shredded daikon kimchi.
This is good. Got so much stuff in this place.
Look at that.
This is kimchi soup.
Yummy. Pork's good, too.
Yeah, that pork is really good.
Man, that looks good, right there.
I'm not gonna lie.
Oh, man. This soup is money.
I'm full, but I can't stop eating.
Can't believe how much I'm eating right now.
[ Laughter ]
I'm never the tong handler
at the Korean barbecue restaurants.
Once you grab the tong, you're like --
Yeah, you're tonged for life, yeah.
You're the designated tong handler,
and I don't want to do that.
That pork order's like...
That's massive.
Who eats all that pork?
ROY: I'll order some noodles and then I think we'll be done.
Can you order one mul-naengmyeon and one bibim-naengmyeon?
So, you finish the meal with the noodles.
Yeah.
You need to cool your system down
from all the heat that you've had,
which actually makes a lot of sense.
Me, too.
This is really good.
That one's really good, right?
It's more like pasta we know.
Like, mwah!
[ Laughter ]
[ Laughter ]
Now that's Italian!
I like just throwing you right in.
But if you like it, then we're off to a running start.
GIADA: Coming up, a backyard adventure
that starts with vegetarian Korean noodles --
my twist on some of these amazing dishes.
GIADA: So, we're just gonna add some grape-seed oil to the pan
and we'll start heating up our pan a little bit.
And we're gonna add the shiitakes
and the oyster mushrooms.
And you can use assorted mushrooms.
Whatever mushrooms you like.
I like the combination of the meatiness
and texture of the shiitakes and the oysters.
So, next, we're gonna add some shallot.
A little onion flavor to kind of balance out
and really season the mushrooms well.
They're like sponges,
so they absorb whatever flavors you add to it.
So the more you add, the more flavorful they tend to be.
And I really like shallots. They're very mild.
They kind of melt into the dish.
You almost don't know they're there,
but they add a nice, sweet onion flavor.
Chop it up and it will cook with the mushrooms
and really season them well.
You know, I've never made it to Korea,
but I hear their food is phenomenal.
After tasting some of the Korean food with Roy, I'm sold.
And now for some color.
And because you will always find red pepper
in this kind of noodle dish, we're gonna add one red pepper.
Give it a nice, little stir.
Allow the mushrooms and the shallots and the pepper
to sort of start softening and cooking down together.
Mmm. Smells so good.
We're also gonna add some scallions.
So three scallions, kind of reinforcing that onion flavor.
And you'll find that in Korean cooking,
there's lots of onions and lots of garlic
to sort of flavor everything.
We're gonna do two cloves of garlic.
And Korean food definitely has, like Italian, garlic.
And I think, too, when you're making a veggie dish,
garlic's kind of really important -- garlic and onion.
It really does flavor all the vegetables and gives them depth.
Chop it up.
Just add it right in there.
Ahh. Smells good.
Garlic and mushrooms.
Okay, so, mushrooms are cooking down nicely.
Let's grab the Tuscan kale.
I like adding the Tuscan kale.
It gives it a beautiful color, vibrancy,
and it's a great way to use kale.
And also, if you want to replace meat,
it's a great combo to do mushrooms and kale together.
It feels very satisfying.
We're just gonna kind of mix that in.
And just like spinach, kale will slowly wilt down.
And we're gonna add a little bit more grape-seed oil.
And I'm using grape-seed oil because it's flavorless,
so it doesn't add any flavor to the dish.
So all the flavors we're adding really stand out.
Now, time to show you the noodles.
These are the Korean-style noodles.
Look at them. You see they're see-through.
You want to cook them like you cook regular pasta,
in lots of water.
I added a little bit of salt to the water.
And you cook them for about six or seven minutes.
They're made of sweet-potato starch,
so they're technically gluten-free,
and they have kind of a little bite to them.
And what you want to do is drain them
and then rinse them so you can rinse off some of that starch.
They come really, really long
when you buy them at the grocery store,
so I just take a pair of scissors
after I've drained them
and they've cooled down a little bit
and I just cut them
so that they're shorter and they're easier to eat.
So, we're gonna take the noodles and we'll put them right on top.
You know, these type of noodles
are difficult to find in a regular grocery store.
They're really easy to find in a Korean store.
But if you can't find them,
you can always use vermicelli or angel-hair pasta.
That'll work, as well.
Let's make the dressing.
So, it's like a little vinaigrette, basically,
that we're gonna add to this.
1/4 cup of sugar for a little bit of sweetness.
Then we're gonna add some soy sauce.
Ahh, nice and salty.
About 1/3 cup of soy sauce.
You could use soy sauce, you could use tamari.
Either one will work.
Some sesame-seed oil.
1 1/2 teaspoons of sesame-seed oil.
And sesame-seed oil is very rich, so it's really yummy.
It works nice with the soy sauce
and the noodles and all the veggies.
And 1 tablespoon of rice-wine vinegar.
Nice and sweet.
And we're gonna give this a quick, little whisk.
I just want to sort of dissolve the sugar into the soy sauce.
Then we're gonna just add a little bit of ginger to it.
Now, we're gonna take the ginger,
peel it a little bit
'cause ginger is a really thick root.
Adding ginger is kind of like adding citrus,
kind of brightens up the foods,
adds a little spice to it, a little warmth.
And I take a little zester,
just grate some of the ginger just like that.
We don't need a lot, just a little bit.
Get it in there.
Awesome. Okay.
So, let's give this another little whisk.
Ginger's in.
And now...let's add the dressing all over the noodles.
Oh, it smells good.
Take some tongs, 'cause it's easier to mix,
just toss it all together.
The noodles absorb the soy-sauce dressing.
And look how beautiful and colorful this is.
Up next, I'm gonna show you how to make Korean pancakes.
A delicious little treat
made with one of Korea's favorite ingredients.
GIADA: So, I'm making my Korean kimchi pancakes.
They're savory pancakes,
and it's a really light batter that we're gonna use.
It's 1 cup of regular flour.
And to lighten it up, we're gonna add a little bit of water.
Just 1 cup of water.
Most Korean restaurants will have pancakes on their menu,
and they're usually savory pancakes.
You share the pancakes and then eat it with your meal.
One egg.
Whisk the batter together.
And you get kind of like a pancake batter, nice and light.
Now, what I want to start doing is heating up my pan.
I'm gonna make this in a non-stick skillet
so I make sure it doesn't stick.
And I'm gonna add some grape-seed oil to the bottom.
There we go.
And what I want to do to the actual batter
is add some kimchi.
And this is the way kimchi comes.
It usually comes in a glass container,
and you can either get it chopped up like this one is,
or you can buy the cabbage whole
and it's just in this large container and it's fermented.
And they say it's really good for you.
I mean, honestly, it's known to help with digestion.
And it's usually quite spicy 'cause they do use hot peppers.
But in Korean culture, it's something that people eat a lot.
Here we go.
And you just take it and I'm just gonna chop it up,
just to make it into smaller pieces to put in the batter.
And this is kind of a fun, different way to use kimchi.
It's really become popular,
and you can find it at the grocery store.
And if you taste it...
Sort of spicy and vinegary but really good.
And salty.
And I'm just gonna add the kimchi
and I'm just gonna mix this all together.
And it kind of turns it a pink color
from all the hot peppers that are in the kimchi itself.
It's really pretty. Mix it all in there.
And that is the batter.
And then you just want to make sure
that the oil is evenly distributed
all over the bottom of the pan.
Grab a ladle.
Ladle it into the pan just like when you make regular pancakes.
These are nice and savory.
There we go.
Couple ladlefuls.
Grab a little spatula.
And just make sure that the batter spreads out nicely.
There we go.
And we're just gonna cook it on each side
for a couple of minutes.
Once the sides start to cook up, then you can flip it right over.
There we go. And it's nice and golden brown.
All right, so I'm just gonna cook this on the other side
for a couple of minutes,
finish off the rest of my pancakes,
and then I'm gonna get everything together
for my Korean barbecue.
And I'm gonna make a simple side salad that's loaded with flavor.
So, I have a lot of my side dishes
and condiments for my Korean barbecue feast.
The noodles are ready, my pancakes are ready.
I've got some beautiful beef.
It's a rib-eye steak, and when you got to a Korean market,
they actually slice it extremely, extremely thin
so we can barbecue it right on a grill in our table.
Got some rice, some kimchi, some cucumbers,
some garlic that we're gonna rub on the grill.
The last thing I have to make is this little side dish
that they serve at a lot of Korean restaurants.
So, we're gonna start with the vinaigrette first.
It's a little bok-choy side dish.
A little bit of water,
and to it, we're gonna add some Korean chili paste.
And Korean chili paste
is made with fermented soybeans and chilies.
And it's very strong, and it can be really powerful.
Quite spicy.
So you just want to be careful how much of it you use.
And we're gonna add a little bit of chili powder.
And this is Korean chili powder.
It's simply just sun-dried chilies that they grind up.
You can just use red-pepper flakes, also.
Then a little bit of rice-wine vinegar.
Korean rice-wine vinegar is a little bit sweeter
than the traditional rice-wine vinegar
you find at the store,
so that's why it's worth getting this particular kind.
And then we're gonna add a little bit of sesame oil.
So, this is sort of the oil
that we're gonna use in the dressing that we're making.
It's toasted sesame oil, so it's very rich.
It smells very nutty, which is really yummy with the bok choy.
So, basically, we're just making a dressing,
and we're gonna dress the bok choy.
'Cause we're not even gonna cook the bok choy.
The whole idea is that you eat the bok choy raw
with this little vinaigrette.
So its kind of like serving you a salad, you know,
with an American barbecue.
But Korean-style, which I think is quite tasty.
And then we're gonna add just 1 teaspoon of sugar,
sweeten it all up.
That's the whole idea with Korean food,
is that you have the salty and the sweet.
And then just a little bit of salt.
There we go.
And just kind of whisk this all together.
And you get this really pretty, little vinaigrette.
Dressing is done.
We're gonna grab our baby bok choy
that I've washed and separated.
They're kind of like lettuce in a way,
except, I think, a lot heartier.
It actually has a lot of flavor.
All right, so let's give this a quick toss.
You just want to make sure that the dressing
dresses all of the bok choy.
And what we want to do is top it
with a little bit of toasted sesame seeds.
It adds a nice amount of richness.
We're gonna top the noodles
with a little bit of toasted sesame seeds.
They come in really handy.
It's sort of the finishing garnish
on a lot of the dishes today.
And just toss them and that's it.
I'm gonna get everything out on the table
and we're ready to start our Korean barbecue.
This is gonna be fun.
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Meat, anybody?
Meat, anybody?
This type of rib eye,
what's special about them is they're super marbled.
I think the hardest part of that would be slicing the beef.
GIADA: Yes, which is why you have to go to a Korean market
to get it like this.
That's a kimchi pancake.
What's the technical name of the noodles?
Japchae.
[ Laughter ]
Make a little lettuce wrap?
I always call -- It's like a Korean taco.
[ Laughter ]
I love the pickled cucumbers.
I'm gonna put a little kimchi on here.
GIADA: Did you guys try the bok choy?
Mmm.
And, of course, we have some Korean beer.
Love the Korean beer.
I got the Korean version of sake, as well,
if anybody's interested in any of that.
We'll test it all on Andrew and see how he likes it.
Yes, let's see how Andrew likes it.
My guess is he'll like it.
[ Laughter ]
You know, these days,
the Korean barbecue thing is really popular.
When I went to Koreatown with Chef Roy Choi,
we had so much meat.
I had never, like, eaten that much meat.
Right.
Platters of pork, platters of different types of beef.
They just put everything on this huge barbecue
right in the middle.
I just love the control
when the stove is in the middle of the table.
Oh, you don't like it when it's on the end?
[ Laughter ]
WOMAN: Andrew has the tongs.
Finally, Andrew gets a chance to eat after barbecuing.
MAN: Andrew, great job.
GIADA: I love that kimchi pancake
with a little bit of the Korean chili paste
and a piece of beef on top. I love it.
It's kind of a Korean pizza slice.
[ Laughter ]
Geonbae!