May LetsLunch: Food across two cultures

Source: pingram.me via Emma on Pinterest

It all started here. Wildly delicious kimchi bulgogi fries from a food truck in Austin.

When my LetsLunch group mentioned doing fusion foods for this month's virtual lunch date, I knew that this was a perfect time to try and adapt this recipe.

Where I landed instead was a little further from the basket of deliciousness I first bit into back in January, but an equally tasty option, I think.

Source: pingram.me via Emma on Pinterest

Kimchi bulgogi nachos.

The thing you have to understand about me is that I really love nachos. And they don't even have to be good ones at a halfway decent Mexican restaurant. I actually really love the super salty chips with the questionably plastic cheese product dispensed from a warm bag that you get at the town hockey rink. (Can you tell I grew up in Minnesota?)

I adapted the cheese sauce recipe found here. We already had a giant bucket of homemade kimchi.

If you have those two things, you are more than halfway there (and really, for the average person, a perfectly nice storebought kimchi works well too -- just get it a good Korean market, not that crap they sell in mainstream grocery stores!)

So, start by draining about 1 1/2 cups of kimchi. You can squeeze some of the extra liquid out with your hands if you like. Chop this coarsely and set aside.

The rest of your toppings: beef bulgogi (marinate rib eye or other nice cut of beef in 3 parts soy sauce, 1 part each: sugar (or honey), sesame oil, rice vinegar, then grill), diced onion and cilantro.

Throw down your chips (I used Trader Joe's multigrain and low-fat blue corn) then drizzle your cheese sauce on top.  I added a few dashes of cayenne and a teaspoon or two of mustard powder to my cheese sauce to give it a little kick.

Then pile on the toppings (be extra generous with the kimchi!). I also gave mine a good squirt of Sriracha rooster sauce for a little extra kick.

I actually liked these better than the french fries I had in Austin - the crispy chips were a good base to really load up each bite. And the Korean-Mexican fusion trend has been popular elsewhere, with Korean tacos and the like, so the flavors complement each other really well.

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Be sure to check the LetsLunch hashtag throughout the day Friday (and into the weekend, we often have stragglers --hell, I'm usually one of them) to see the delicious fusion offerings of the rest of our gang!

edit: Or check out my Pinterest Board, where I've pulled all of the links together!

Interested in joining us? Send us a tweet with #LetsLunch and introduce yourself! I'm @emmacarew.