The first time I had this dish was at a bulgogi (Korean barbeque) restaurant. The meal came with 6 or 7 complimentary side dishes, but this one was my favourite.
Ingredients
- 3 small potatoes -- Even though they are small potatoes, they are the most important part of the dish.
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp mirin -- Sweet Japanese cooking wine. Can be skipped if you can't find it.
- 1 tbps sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- sesame seeds
- cooking oil
Method
- Combine soy sauce, honey, mirin, sesame oil and garlic. Mix until the honey is dissolved.
- Wash and cut the potatoes into 1.5 cm cubes.
- Add cooking oil to a pan and turn heat to high. Fry the potatoes until they are golden. Try to fry all the surfaces as much as possible. Don't worry if some of it sticks to the pan because we'll take care of that in the next step. (And you should probably use a bigger pan than I did. Looks a bit crowded in there.)
- Add the sauce we made before, plus enough water to almost cover the potatoes -- about 1-2 cups.
- As the sauce comes to a simmer, turn the heat down to medium. This is when you can take the opportunity to gently scrape any stuck potato bits off the bottom as they soften.
- Continue to simmer the potatoes until almost all the sauce is gone and has become thick and sticky. It will take about 15 minutes. You may need to turn down the heat near the end to avoid burning. Stirring occasionally will help even out the flavour and cooking, but be gentle so as not to break up the potatoes.
- Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top and serve.
If you want a super duper version of this, you can deep fry the potatoes instead of frying.
Or if you want a version with less oil, you can also roast the potatoes instead.
In my book, any version is a good version!
