Use these Asian techniques to make your grilling season a healthy one
I eat a lot of barbecue—it's part of my job. The taping of my PBS television show
Primal Grill involves preparing 50 dishes in less than a week, and I sample each one on-air. As you can imagine, I approach my annual physical exam with great trepidation, especially considering that my doc is a cardiologist. Lipitor can do only so much. How do I keep my cholesterol levels, calorie intake, and waistline in check?
When I'm grilling at home for my family, my answer is often a twist on the old pioneer's mantra: "Go East." In America, barbecue is big and beautiful, centering on huge hunks of animal protein, such as one of my specialties, Texas brisket. In Asia, the small-is-beautiful approach prevails: Singaporean
satay, Japanese
yakitori, and Hong Kong–style rotisserie chicken wings, to name a few.
Then there's the way Asians eat barbecue. In the United States, barbecue typically consists of a meat swabbed with sugary sauce and served with white bread or deep-fried hush puppies. Vegetables are often an afterthought. In many Asian countries, barbecue features all the major food groups, and grilled meat is used more as an accent.
The ultimate example of the healthy Asian approach to barbecue is Korea's national dish,
kalbi kui, which is made by grilling beef short ribs, wrapping them in lettuce leaves, and piling the dish high with vegetables. In America, this fatty but delectable rib is smoked and then gnawed right off the bone in supersize portions. But if you were to diagram the Korean version from a nutritional point of view, you'd wind up with something that looks like the USDA's food pyramid, with meat in moderation and plant foods in abundance. I'd put it up for a taste test next to any artery-clogging American-style ribs in a heartbeat.
Korean-Style Short Ribs
2 ½ to 3 lbs. beef short ribs
15 cloves garlic, peeled (mince 3 of the cloves)
½ cup sugar, divided
1 cup soy sauce, divided
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
½ cup sake
1 small Asian pear, cored and finely chopped
2 bunches of scallions
2 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
4 jalapeno peppers
2 heads romaine lettuce
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced
2 cups kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage)
½ cup Korean hot bean paste
2 cups cooked Asian-style rice
1. Preheat the grill and its grate to high. Run a knife along the top of the bones to remove meat. Cut the resulting rectangular-shaped slab diagonally. Slices should measure 2 inches wide, 3 inches long, and an eighth of an inch thick. Reserve the bones.
