Meat Jun

Meat jun is a very unique dish that is hard to find outside of Hawaii, but it really isn’t that hard to make. In its simplest form, it is thinly sliced beef marinated and fried with a thin coating of egg. It originates from Korea, but has been adapted by the folks in Hawaii. The best in Oahu, Hawaii is from Soon’s Kalbi Drive-In at the Salt Lake Shopping center (checkout my post about them by clicking here). I had the balls to ask them for their meat jun recipe because we don’t have anything like it in the mainland, and they said “no can do and just come back and order more! Haha!”

However, if you are not there on Oahu and crave for it, don’t stress because the folks over at Foodland Hawaii have a pretty good version out there and the recipe is below. We made it many times now and it satisfies my cravings for meat jun. See my 2 pics below . . .

The keys are having the beef sliced thin about 1/8 inch, marinating it for at least three hours or overnight preferably, coating it well with flour and letting it absorb the flour coating for a couple of minutes so that the flour adheres to the beef and the egg sticks to the flour so that nothing separates (i.e., the egg does not fall off the meat). Also, if you are lazy to make the beef marinade, you can use the kalbi or bulgogi sauce that is already premade from any Asian grocery store. We have used the HanAsia and CJ brands pictured below.

The hardest part of this recipe is getting the beef sliced not too thick and not too thin. Most folks don’t have a meat slicer at home, and I just ask the butcher at our local Safeway to slice the top sirloin for me. They have commercial meat slicers that can do it quick, easy and safely. If they are using the same commercial meat slicer, it is in between a 1.5 and 2 measurement setting.

Enjoy! Sharing is caring! Recipe and video below from Chef Keoni Chang of Foodland Hawaii.

Hard to resist this local favorite, Chef Keoni Chang shares his delicious recipe for Meat Jun!

Makes 6 Servings

Ingredients

1 pound – premium choice certified angus beef® rib eye, top sirloin, cross rib, etc; very thinly sliced

3⁄4 cups – soy sauce

2 cloves – garlic, minced

3⁄4 cups – sugar

1⁄2 cup – water

8 – eggs, beaten

flour, as needed

canola oil, as needed

Dipping Sauce

1⁄3 cup – soy sauce

1 tablespoon – rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon – sesame oil

pinch – red pepper or black pepper

Instructions

Flour meat, dip in beaten eggs, and pan fry in oil.