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.
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 steaksMeanwhile, 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 gingerAdd 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 oilPile 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 leavesAppears in
In every beef share — Topside Steaks (~460g)
From $159.00$176.67SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
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?
How do I slice the beef thin enough?
Can I marinate the beef overnight?
Is bulgogi spicy?
Can I cook bulgogi on the barbecue?
Three Simple Steps
A whole table of real food.
Your Farmers grow grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured eggs and the best eco-grown veggies and produce — every item grown to the same ecological standard, every farmer one you can know by name. One subscription, your whole real-food shop.
01
Reserve your share — or try a pack
Subscribe to a share of the harvest, or start with a one-off fixed pack.
02
Make it your own
Pick your delivery rhythm and what's in the box. Skip or cancel anytime — no lock-in.
03
Cook, savour, know your farmer
We deliver in a reusable esky we collect next time. No couriers, no waste.
Price$176.67
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$159.00
Price$183.33
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$165.00
Price$158.89
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$143.00
Grass-Fed Mince, Sausage and Diced Beef Pack
Price$264.44
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$238.00
Grass-Fed Beef and Lamb BBQ Box
Price$286.67
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$258.00
Pastured Lamb Roast and Slow-Cook Box
Price$155.56
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 10%
$140.00
More Recipes
Sirloin with Green Peppercorn Sauce
The steak-restaurant order you can make in one pan
There's a reason the green peppercorn sauce has never left the steak-restaurant menu: it's magnificent, and it takes about ten minutes. The little peppercorns come in a jar of brine, sitting near the capers at the supermarket, and they bring a gentle heat that cream rounds off beautifully. You'll sear the sirloin in a heavy pan, rest it, and build the whole sauce on the browned bits left behind. Two steaks, one pan, and a dinner that feels like a night out.
Warm Eye Fillet and Roast Pumpkin Salad
Two small steaks, three full plates
Here's a quiet bit of kitchen maths. Two 140g medallions doesn't sound like dinner for three — until you roast a tray of pumpkin, sear the fillet medium-rare, rest it properly and slice it thin across the grain. Suddenly every plate gets sweet golden pumpkin, creamy feta, toasted pepitas and a generous fan of the tenderest beef there is. It's the kind of dinner that feels abundant without being heavy, and it makes the smallest pack in the share go further than you'd believe.
Sirloin with Bordelaise-Style Red Wine and Shallot Sauce
Occasion cooking from a bottle of red and a bit of patience
This is occasion cooking, but be clear about what that means: the sauce is red wine, eschalots and stock reduced patiently in a small saucepan, finished with cold butter until it turns glossy. Half an hour, most of it unattended. Meanwhile the sirloin gets a proper sear and a proper rest, and the two meet on a warm plate over mash. It's the kind of dinner restaurants charge dearly for, made from one steak and the open half of a bottle you were drinking anyway.
Read moreabout Sirloin with Bordelaise-Style Red Wine and Shallot Sauce
Share:
Beef Sausage and Potato Hotpot
Beef and Snow Pea Stir-Fry with Round Steak