Cooking on hot days can mean heating up the house, making it tough to sleep when you finally turn in. What is the best way to beat the heat? Cook outdoors, and prep sauces or marinades that don’t require cooking. Plus if you can grill, fry, or do any cooking on an open flame, you get great flavour while enjoying the outdoors.

Korean bulgogi is a perfect example—a dish bursting with bold and delicious flavours. Bulgogi means “grilled meat,” and is traditionally made with thinly sliced beef. Turns out lean venison works even better! Thinly sliced flank steak or round roast is ideal.

Bulgogi marinade is easy and fast to make. A barbeque, camp stove with a Camp Chef cast iron skillet, or even wood coals and a grate are perfect to get classic char flavours on your meat.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs venison flank or round roast, sliced thin across the grain
• ½ cup soy sauce
• ½ cup cold water
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• 6 green onions, chopped (reserve half)
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Directions:

1. In a sealable container large enough to hold two pounds of meat, add soy sauce, water, sugar, half of the chopped green onions, garlic, and sesame oil. Mix well.
2. Slice venison across the grain. To keep the meat as thin as possible, cut it while still partially frozen and add the pieces directly to the marinade to finish thawing and soak up the flavour. Add the meat to the marinade in the container and seal with a lid or cover. Refrigerate for a minimum of one hour. Overnight is ideal for traditional flavour.
3. Preheat an outdoor grill or cast iron skillet to high heat. Place bulgogi meat strips on the grill or in the skillet, and cook for one to two minutes, or until nicely caramelized.
4. Heat corn tortillas or taco shells to make them pliable to hold ingredients. A hot cast iron skillet works best, leaving the tortilla in the hot pan for 10 to 15 seconds per side.
5. Place cooked bulgogi meat into a tortilla or taco shell and top with chopped green onion and toasted sesame seeds. Serve warm.

Flank steak is overlooked as a prime piece of meat off any game animal. It is the triangle of lean meat at the bottom edge of the ribs that extends down over the abdomen. The flank is thin and dries out quickly, so it should be removed before hanging an animal for any length of time.

Meat can be threaded on a skewer to cook on a barbecue or grill and ensure it doesn’t fall through the grate.

A trick for toasting sesame seeds is to heat the cast iron skillet to medium-high, add the seeds, turn off the heat after 5 minutes, and stir until seeds are golden brown. After turning off the heat, the cast iron will hold the temperature to toast the sesame seeds nicely.