Instant Pot Korean Style Boiled Pork Belly (보쌈, Bossam) (2024)

FAQs

What does bossam mean in Korean? ›

Bossam (Korean: 보쌈) is a pork dish in Korean cuisine. It usually consists of pork shoulder that is boiled in spices and thinly sliced.

Make sure you don't overcook pork belly, make sure its still juicy and tender. Remove pork belly from cooking broth. Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting and serving. This process is how you traditionally make suyuk; you can stop here, cut and serve.

Suyuk is a Korean term for boiled pork traditionally made after making kimchi. Bossam is a way to eating pork by wrapping it in salted cabbage.

For that reason most of the time this dish served cold, which it still is delicious, but my preference is to eat this dish warm! The Instant Pot makes it super easy to make this dish at home, in under an hour! While the Instant Pot is cooking the pork belly, I will prepare the radish dish.

As mentioned, bossam is super simple to make. You'll need several ingredients but the main aim of these is just to enhance the flavor of the meat and to remove the strong pork odor. For the pork, I used belly, but pork shoulder or pork butt is also amenable to this recipe.

To eat, each person should dip a piece of pork in the saewoo jeot, then set it on a cabbage leaf. Add a sliver of garlic, a dab of ssamjang, and a few pieces of the mu malaengi; if you like, add a slice of green chile too. Wrap the cabbage around it all and eat it in one big delicious bite.

Bring to a boil; lower heat, cover and keep on low boil for about 2 hours or until pork starts to fall apart. This can take longer if pork simmers at a lower temperature. This is a good dish to make on cold winter days; the pork can simmer along for many hours if you'd like to hold it longer.

The idea is that by boiling the fatty pork belly, it not only renders out some of the fat, it also tenderizes the meat. Because the boiling time is so short it's debatable how tender it makes the meat, but what it does do is prime the fat for high-heat cooking.

And since overcooking shrinks meat fibers and squeezes our juices, overcooked pork is tough and dry.

Why do Koreans like pork belly so much? ›

When it comes to grilling, Koreans know their stuff. Pork belly is the most popular cut of meat and for good reason - it's fatty, juicy, and full of flavor.

What is bossam? Bossam (보쌈) is a boiled pork dish. The meat is boiled in a flavorful brine until tender and served thinly sliced. At the table, each person wraps the meat in salted napa cabbage leaves along with radish salad (musaengchae/muchae) and salted shrimp.

Sides and Sauces: Steamed White Rice, Ginger Scallion Sauce, Ssam Sauce, Korean BBQ Sauce, Guacamole + Pico de Gallo. More Sides: Sesame Noodle Salad and Ginger Soy Herb Salad.

Kimchi, and many side dishes are originally meant to be served cold since they are made for preservation for at least days or even years. These cold Banchans (side dishes) go well with a spoonful of warm rice. And there are some cold main dishes too. Cold noodles, for instance, are made with almost frozen broth.

Korea's traditional hot dishes for summer were eaten on sambok (the three dog days of summer, those calculated to be the hottest based on the 10 gan (heavenly stems) and 12 ji (earthly branches). They are mainly designed to help people weather the heat by eating food thought to boost stamina.

Bossam was a custom in the Joseon period, in which a bachelor wrapped up a widow in a blanket at night and made her his wife.

/bogi/ sight. singular noun. The sight of something is the act of seeing it or an occasion on which you see it.

*Jokbal(족발) is a Korean dish consisting of pig's trotters cooked with soy sauce and spices. It is usually braised in a combination of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and rice wine. Additional ingredients used can include onion, leeks, garlic, cinnamon and black pepper. *Bossam (보쌈) is a pork dish in Korean cuisine.

In Korea, the word samgyeop-sal, meaning "pork belly", often refers to samgyeop-sal-gui (grilled pork belly), in the same way that the word galbi, meaning "ribs", often refers to galbi-gui (grilled beef ribs).