The Secret to Great Korean BBQ Is Not What You Think

In my house growing up, Korean-barbecue clothes were a set of raggedy T-shirts and sweatpants reserved for nights when we were grilling at home — and by grilling at home, I mean indoors.

My family would grill meat right at our round, lacquered dining table. In the center sat a portable butane stove, topped with a three-foot domed wheel of steel, a heavy black pan made by a metalworker friend of my mother’s. A spaceship-looking thing, it sat perfectly over the butane stove, sizzling with galbi, soy-marinated short ribs; samgyeopsal, gloriously fatty pork belly; and chadolbaegi, razor-thin slices of brisket that curled up as soon as they hit the heat. These fiery meals were precise but casual, remarkable but easy to throw together.

You can’t imagine the mess they made. After one of these dinners, our basketball jerseys and band T-shirts would go straight into the wash. As for the flying-saucer pan, we got many meals out of it until I stole it, driving it up to New York and never bringing it back. (It’s too heavy to move twice.)

If you don’t have a metalworker friend who can fashion you a special Korean-barbecue pan, then a regular outdoor grill and full steaks, marinated in advance and sliced after grilling, work just fine. It’s a technique I learned from Peter Cho, the chef and owner of Jeju in Portland, Ore.