Alison and Phillip Beaty

“When I cook, I cook for an army,” said Phillip Beaty of Bruce. He doesn’t measure anything–he cooks by taste, like his mom, who is Korean.

He spent six years helping in her Korean restaurant, saying he rolled hundreds of wontons while he was in fifth and sixth grades, and later worked in her barbecue restaurant.
He makes wontons a lot now when he and Alison have company, and he, along with his three brothers and two sisters once had a wonton cookoff, of which he was proclaimed the winner. His family always has a reunion July 4 and they strictly cook Korean food. He has always tried to duplicate his favorite recipes of his mother.
He is particular about his recipes, he said, and has a lot of secrets he won’t give up, Alison added. One of those is pan-fried squid.

He and daughter Jaelee sometimes enjoy squid legs for their daddy-daughter dinner dates. When he makes chicken and dumplings, after rolling and cutting the dough, he says he stretches it before cooking. It makes the dumplings more fluffy, and he uses lots of chicken.
Crawfish Mashed Potatoes has become Alison’s special occasion dish and is a family favorite you can make as hot as you like.
She says she basically learned about cooking when she bought some Pampered Chef cookware that included a recipe book, and says she ventured out from there. She uses recipes as a guide, because she always changes them.

She likes to keep it simple when cooking. “Salt and pepper go a long way,” she said. And their house rule is, “At least taste it.”
Her favorite of Phillip’s is Bulgogi because of its sweet sauce, and she likes it with rice. It is a favorite of their children, too.
Phillip says it’s like rib-eye for Koreans. They also cook a good bit of deer meat, and have used it instead of beef in making Bulgogi, and they call it “deergogi.” Phillip’s favorite of Alison’s is chicken pot pie.
Besides Korean and Southern, they cook some Mexican, and Italian (for Alison). Phillip fries chicken wings and Alison made a sauce that she has duplicated on several occasions, and especially enjoyed by her parents, Paul and Kay Tyler.

She has tried making fried okra like her grandmother, Cuvis Tyler, but says she can’t make it taste the same.
They use a lot of a Korean red chili pepper paste, Gochujang, which they get at Winchester Market in  Memphis, and they always use a rice cooker– “do not feed him Minute Rice!” says Alison.

Crawfish Mashed Potatoes
7 large golden (or red) potatoes
1 1/2 sticks of butter, sliced
½ cup milk
1 lb. cooked crawfish tails, thawed and rinsed
Cayenne pepper
Make your typical Southern mashed potatoes first. Peel and dice about seven large golden potatoes. Boil until tender. Drain water, add butter and mash, gradually add milk until your preferred consistency is met. Saute crawfish in skillet with about one tablespoon of butter until warm. Add cayenne (we like them hot so I sprinkle cayenne across the top of the skillet until its red–probably about half a tablespoon). Stir crawfish into potatoes.

Bulgogi
1 lb. beef roast, thinly sliced
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp.  garlic powder
Mix all ingredients (except beef) into mixing bowl and blend until smooth. Place meat into a gallon Ziploc bag, pour marinade into bag and let sit in freezer about an hour. Remove from freezer and toss in a large wok until meat is cooked.

Spicy Pork
1 lb pork roast, thinly sliced
Marinade: same as bulgogi, just add a generous amount of Gochujang until mix is reddish.  Mix all ingredients (except pork) into mixing bowl and blend until smooth. Place meat into a gallon Ziploc bag, pour marinade into bag and let sit in freezer about an hour. Remove from freezer and toss in a large wok until meat is cooked.

Shrimp Fried Rice
3 cups cooked rice
4 eggs
3 cups peas and carrots (frozen tastes best, cook in microwave until tender, do not overcook)
Soy sauce
1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
Butter
1 bag cooked, peeled salad   shrimp, thawed and rinsed
Cook rice in rice cooker (don’t use minute rice). In large wok, melt about a dollop of butter, add eggs. Scramble and cook until lightly browned. Add rice, peas and carrots, toss adding butter a tablespoon at a time until rice is not sticking together
Pour about ¼ cup soy sauce and toss until light brown. Add shrimp and continue to toss. Sprinkle sesame seeds.