Sweet, savoury, and gone before the rice is

Korean cooks worked this out generations ago: take lean beef, slice it paper thin, and let a grated nashi do the tenderising. The fruit softens the meat while soy, garlic and sesame build the flavour — and thin-cut topside is exactly the lean, even steak the method was made for. An hour in the marinade, a few minutes over ferocious heat, and dinner comes out glossy, caramelised at the edges and disappearing fast. Rice underneath, lettuce leaves alongside if you're being civilised about it.

1 hr 30 mins 4 servings Prep 1 hr 20 minsCook 10 minsMain CourseKorean

Ingredients

  • 460g Your Farmer grass-fed topside steaks
  • 1 nashi, peeled and coarsely grated
  • 4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 tsp finely grated ginger
  • 3 spring onions — 2 finely sliced for the marinade, 1 sliced to serve
  • 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tbsp neutral oil (rice bran or vegetable), for cooking
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, to serve
  • Steamed rice and butter lettuce leaves, to serve

Instructions

For the marinade

Put the steaks in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up, then slice across the grain as thinly as you can manage — aim for slices you can almost see through.

460g topside steaks

Meanwhile, stir the grated nashi, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, the sliced spring onions and the pepper together in a large bowl.

1 grated nashi4 tbsp soy sauce3 cloves garlic2 tsp ginger

Add the beef and massage the marinade through every slice. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour (overnight is even better, but optional).

To cook

Heat a grill pan or your heaviest frying pan over the highest heat until properly smoking. Lift the beef from the marinade, letting the excess drip off.

Cook in three batches with a little of the oil, spreading the slices in a single layer and leaving them 60–90 seconds to caramelise before turning. Crowd the pan and it stews — give each batch room.

1 tbsp neutral oil

Pile the beef over steamed rice, scatter with the sesame seeds and remaining spring onion, and serve with lettuce leaves for wrapping.

steamed ricetoasted sesame seeds1 spring onionlettuce leaves

Appears in

In every beef share — Topside Steaks (~460g)

Your Farmer CSA grass-fed beef share — vacuum-sealed steaks, roasts, mince and sausages, paddock-to-plate NSW & ACT delivery
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Why Bulgogi Wants Exactly This Steak

Bulgogi translates roughly as "fire meat", and the dish has always been built on one idea: lean beef, sliced paper thin, over serious heat. Fatty, marbled cuts aren't the point here — the marinade supplies the richness, so what you want underneath is a lean, fine-grained muscle that slices cleanly and cooks in seconds. Topside is precisely that, and because the steaks in a CSA beef share come thin-cut already, you're only ever a few knife strokes from bulgogi-ready. The nashi isn't decoration, either: its natural enzymes gently soften the meat while the sugars help those burnished, caramelised edges happen. Fifteen minutes in the freezer before slicing is the other Your Farmer® kitchen trick worth keeping — firm meat slices thinner, and thinner is better here.

Swaps and Variations

No nashi at the shops? A regular pear works, or half a grated apple — you're after the enzymes and gentle sweetness, not the specific fruit. The round steaks from the same share swap in seamlessly. A handful of thinly sliced brown onion tossed through the marinade is traditional too — it caramelises alongside the beef and nobody's ever complained. Heat lovers can stir a spoon of gochujang or chilli flakes through half the marinade, keeping the other half mild for the kids. Come summer, cook it outside on the flat plate — the same searing logic behind our marinated topside steaks on the barbecue applies, just in thinner slices and quicker batches.

Storage and Leftovers

Bulgogi is a freezer strategy as much as a recipe: portion the raw beef into its marinade and freeze flat in a bag for up to 2 months, and it marinates itself as it thaws overnight in the fridge. Cooked leftovers keep 3 days and reheat in a hot pan in under a minute — or skip the reheat and pile the cold beef into lettuce cups with a spoon of rice. The best leftover move of all is bulgogi fried rice: yesterday's rice, yesterday's beef, a fried egg on top. If cold beef and crisp leaves appeal, our warm topside beef salad runs the same playbook in a different accent.

Frequently asked questions

I can't find nashi — what can I use instead?

A regular pear is the closest swap, or half a grated apple. Kiwifruit also tenderises but it's much stronger — use no more than half a fruit or the meat can go soft and mushy.

How do I slice the beef thin enough?

Fifteen minutes in the freezer firms the steaks up so your knife can work in long, thin strokes. Always slice across the grain — the thin-cut steaks make this easy because the grain runs visibly through them.

Can I marinate the beef overnight?

Yes — overnight deepens the flavour and the nashi keeps working gently. Beyond about 24 hours the texture starts turning too soft, so cook it within a day.

Is bulgogi spicy?

Not as written — it's sweet-savoury and very kid-friendly. Chilli comes as an add-on: gochujang or chilli flakes stirred through the marinade, or a spicy dipping sauce on the side for the adults.

Can I cook bulgogi on the barbecue?

Yes, on the flat plate rather than the grill bars — the slices are too thin for open grates. Get the plate ripping hot and cook in quick single-layer batches, just as you would in the pan.

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