The Best Dinner for Picky Eaters (Baby Bulgogi)
Spoiler alert: what follows is just meat and rice. Simple enough, right? Exactly–but better. We’re drawing from the same hearty pleasures you’d get from a street cart, or KBBQ, or kabobs: think late night sustenance, just fine tuned for the needs of a small child. Keep it flavorful and wholesome; keep it simple. It’s almost impossible to have a dinner fail this way.
For the version below, I look towards Korean cuisine, liberally borrowing from the flavors of bulgogi (albeit with ground meat rather than steak); as you’ll see in the Adapt section, though, the variations are endless–say, ground lamb over rice with yogurt sauce.
- 1 lb Ground Turkey (or lean ground beef or lamb)
- 1/2 small Onion
- 1 tbsp + additional drizzle , Maple Syrup
- 1 tbsp + additional drizzle Sesame Oil
- 1 tbsp + additional drizzle Soy Sauce
- dried Ginger
- dried Cilantro
- Sesame Seeds
- dried Chives
- Rice or grain of your choosing
- Vegetable of your choosing
- Dice the onion into small pieces and pour into a bowl; add meat, maple syrup, sesame oil, soy sauce, and a couple of shakes of ginger and cilantro. With your hands, blend the meat mixture until it has absorbed all the liquids and seasonings. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
- Prep your preferred grain and vegetable. Set aside to cool.
- Heat oil in a large pan to Medium High. Once the pan is smoking, put meat in and immediately chop the meat into small bits and pieces. Stirring constantly, cook until fully brown all around and with some crisped edges, roughly 5-6 minutes.
- While cooling, top with sesame seeds and chives.
Plate with preferred grain next to it, along with the vegetable in a separate plate compartment. Sauce shouldn’t be necessary, but if requested or needed a bit of hoisin or teriyaki will help.
Pretty much any part of this–the meat, the flavorings, the grain, the vegetables–can be swapped out, but stick to lean proteins if using a sweet element (i.e., maple syrup) and stick to fattier proteins–and skip the oil in the marinade–if using a creamy sauce on top. As alluded to above, we’re big fans of doing a NYC-style “halal cart” lamb over rice: couldn’t be easier, and it makes a weeknight dinner with the kid feel a bit like those days when you could down a whole Styrofoam shell at 11PM.
Brad (the Dad) is the founder and Chief Recipe Officer of New Dad's Kitchen. His own cooking/feeding journey started humbly during his son's infancy, preparing and managing his son's bottle intake in order to support his wife; it has since blossomed into a full-on passion to feed his child and family delicious and healthy meals that can satisfy both a toddler and his very tired parents.
