Cooking is such a pain. It took me about 2 hours including waiting time. My neck and shoulders are so sore from peeling the quail’s egg shells. However this dish is Michael’s second favorite side dish after Buchimgae (Korean style pancakes). As the saying goes, “Love is great.” 
Ingredients
- Beef - Top round 250 g (or fore shank, eye round is good too.)
- Quail’s Eggs 2 packs (One pack holds 28 eggs)
- White radish 4 big pieces
- 1 small onion (peeled and with the ends cut off)
- 1 stalk of green onion
- Ginger powder 1 tsp
- Pepper - 2 tsp
- Salt - 1 tsp
- Refined rice wine - 2 tbsp
- Water - 5 cups
- Dried kelp (10*12cm size) and water 1 cup
- Soy sauce - 100 ml
- Sugar - 4 tbsp
- 1 green chili
Preparation and Broth
1. Soak the beef in cold water for about 1 hour. -To get rid of the blood.
2. Soak the kelp in 1 cup of water for about 1 hour. -We only need water from it.
3. Boil the quail’s eggs with 1 tsp of salt.
4. Empty the hot water and cool the eggs with cold water.
5. Put the beef, radish, spring onion, and onion in the pot. Add the 5 cups of water and add the pepper, ginger powder, and rice wine.
6. Boil it for about 15 minutes.
7. While it is boiling, peel the egg shells. (It takes more than 15 minutes for one person.)
8. Sieve the water. (We will need 2 cups of broth from this and the beef. Throw out the rest of the veggies.)
9. Tear the beef with your hands by following its shape. (I slice the beef with a knife first to tear it easier. It was just to tough for me.)
10. Rinse the eggs in cold water just in case some bits of shells stuck on them.
Cooking
1. Put the 2 cups of broth and 1 cup of kelp soaked water into the pot.
2. Add the soy sauce and sugar.
3. Boil it.
3. When it starts to boil, add the quail’s eggs, torn beef, and green chili.
4. Boil it on medium heat until half the sauce disappears. (Stir it every 3 minutes.)
5. Cool it down for about 1 hour.
6. Serve on a dish as much as you are going to eat and keep the rest of it in the container. (I just added parsley on top to give it an elegant look for the photo. :))
It was my second try in my life, after the first time I decided not to make this again because as I said earlier, it is such annoying work. Especially when you have to peel the quail’s egg alone. However as the saying goes, “The patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.” It was a really delicious meal. The beef was so tender and the sauce was so sweet. So we used sauce to mix with some rice. It was really nice. Again Michael overate it. Luckily he didn’t get sick.
Michael told me not to post this recipe because it is so tasty (to keep it as my secret recipe), but I decided to share it with you. But you really need some patience when you peel the quail’s egg shells.
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this dish looks very time consuming, but if it is one of your husband’s favorites, then I think it is definitely worth cooking
Hi, Kat
Indeed, it is very time consuming though it was worth cooking as you said. Yet I don’t think I want to cook it for a while.
Quail eggs are such a wonderful delicacy. They’re expensive and hard to find in America. The first quail eggs I had were deviled. Now that had to have been a lot of work.
I was excited to find them so plentiful and cheap here. So I bought some and boiled them. And, yes, peeling them is labor intensive.
Thank you for taking on such a time consuming endeavor and sharing your recipe. I don’t know if it’ll work with quail eggs, but it works very well with chicken eggs. I usually tap the hardboiled egg until all the shell is in small pieces and because it’s held together by the inner membrane layer, it’s so easy to peel. The shell usually peels right off in layers. Sometimes the egg just popps out of the shell at some point. Hope it works for you.
Hi Joe,
I didn’t know that quail’s eggs are expensive in America. As you know, they are cheaper than chicken eggs sometimes in Korea. I bought 2 packs of quail’s eggs for 2600 won (about US $2.70) Though I don’t want to cook them for a while, such hard work.
Hi lance,
Thanks for the tips. I think I sort of tried like you suggested for couple of quail’s eggs, but I guess I didn’t tap thoroughly enough to make it peels instantly.
I will try properly as you suggest next time.
Take care, you two.
i was wondering if we can substitute the fresh quail eggs with the ones from a can..
Hi tammie,
I’ve never used canned eggs, but if they are already shelled it may make it less work. If they are preserved with salt it may change the taste though.
This recipe is very similar to one that my wife used in our Korean Restaurant. Due to the expense and limited availability of quail eggs, she would often substitute chicken, duck, or goose eggs. This was a favorite of our American customers.
my first dinner with my korean (ex)husband we had this and a bunch of side dishes. the woman who made it for us actually used several peppers, chicken eggs & left the meat whole.. it was salty-sweet. she arranged the peppers on top of the meat so that they looked like a flower.. sort of like the ones on 화전.
it was delicious. quail eggs are indeed very expensive here, because you have to buy them from hatcheries. i was looking around online for them & for 100 of them, it’s like $55.00 shipping, and the bad thing is that they’re already fertilized.. but anyway. 
thank you for posting this!!
i’m definitely going to try this recipe out, because i want to taste this again. it looks beautiful and my mouth is already salivating!
best wishes,
~ 도쿠
oh, i forgot.. the lady also used some garlic cloves.
they were very tasty with the sweet-saltiness of the dish. 
this looks soooo good!
Yum! I’m not sure I have the patience to peel so many quails eggs at once though. This dish reminds me of the Japanese simmered pork dishButa no Kakuni, so maybe I will try it with full size eggs.
Hi Cass,
I think using normal eggs would go well too. Good luck!
Can anyone answer what the kelp was used for? I do not see anything beyond soaking it..
thanks
I’ve been looking for this dish since I seen it in a recent Korean movie called “Dirty Carnival.” The lead character/gangster prepares it alongside a rice porridge for his sick girlfriend. Can’t wait to try it.
I just made this dish for the first time. I used your recipe but did the portions a little differently and I added two cloves of garlic during the last and final boil. It came very good.
Though it took me 2 hours. I wasn’t busy the entire time so I didn’t find it too hard. I cleaned the dishes and cleaned the kitchen etc while waiting for things.
Though quail eggs aren’t easy to find in most American groceries in the NY area, they are were at my Korean grocers. Also I boiled my quail eggs for 4 min. I rinsed them with cold water with ice in the same pot. After the ice melted I peeled them in the water so I didn’t have to wash them later-saved me at least two steps. Also it helps if you crack the wide part of the egg (the bottom part) and make sure the shell is all cracked (I rolled them on the side of the pot) and it comes off in one peel–most of the time. I also drank two glasses of wine doing it so it went fast and was kind of fun.
Thanks so much for the recipe. I’m not a meat fan but I loved the fact that quail eggs are used (rarely see that in the Korean restaurants around here) and I thought it would be a nice surprise for my sister who loves this dish.