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Bossam (Boiled Pork Belly with Radish Salad and Oysters)

Bossam (Boiled Pork Belly with Radish Salad and Oysters) reads umami 7.6, salinity 6.0 and marine & briny 5.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Korean main, about 2 hr 27 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 7.6 · Salinity 6.0 · Marine & Briny 5.7 · Funk & Ferment 5.6 · Richness 5.4 · Allium 4.8 · Sweetness 3.9 · Warm Spice 2.3 · Heat 1.8 · Smoke 1.7 · Sourness 1.2 · Earthy 1.2 · Herbaceous 1.1 · Bitterness 1.1

What's in it (16)

Time & effort: about 2 hr 27 min (2 hr 2 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 197.6 kcal, 9.7 g protein, 16.9 g fat, 1.6 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. Put the pork belly in a pot with the water, doenjang, soju, onion, garlic, ginger and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, skim, then simmer, half covered, for 80 to 90 minutes. The doenjang is doing real work here: its enzymes and its salt strip the pork of any strong smell and season the meat right to the middle, which plain water cannot do.
  2. Test with a skewer through the thickest part; it should meet no resistance. Take the pot off the heat and leave the belly in its liquid for 15 minutes, then lift it onto a board and rest it 10 minutes more. Resting in the liquid keeps it from drying, and this is a dish served warm, not hot.
  3. While it cooks, make the radish salad. Rub the gochugaru into the radish matchsticks first until the colour is even, then mix in the anchovy sauce, sugar and minced garlic. Leave it 20 minutes; the radish will soften slightly and give up enough liquid to make its own dressing.
  4. Rinse the oysters gently in lightly salted water and drain them. In winter, on the west and south coasts, a plate of raw oysters is the fixed partner to bossam, and the muchae is often folded through them just before serving.
  5. Slice the rested belly across into pieces 5 mm thick, each with skin, fat and meat in the same slice. Slicing thicker makes it heavy; thinner and it falls apart in the wrap.
  6. Serve everything separately: warm pork, radish salad, oysters, salted cabbage leaves and ssamjang. Each person lays a leaf on their palm, adds a slice of pork, a pinch of the radish, an oyster and a dab of ssamjang, folds it into a parcel and eats it in one mouthful. That is the rule about ssam, and it is not decorative: the whole balance of fat, salt, chile and cold crunch only works if it arrives in the mouth at once.
  7. Substitutions: brined 2 hours in 5 per cent brine can stand in for the salted napa cabbage leaves.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.