Instant Pot Korean Style Boiled Pork Belly (보쌈, Bossam) (2025)

FAQs

What does bossam mean in Korean? ›

Korean name

To eat, the meat and side dishes are wrapped together in ssam vegetables, hence the literal meaning of bossam: "wrapped" or "packaged".

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 means "water meat." Su means water, and yuk means meat. This is a catch-all name for these dishes, but most of the time, when you hear suyuk, you can expect boiled pork. Bossam is a boiled pork eaten in a specific way, wrapped with leaves.

Bossam—thin slices of velvety boiled pork belly wrapped in cabbage with fresh, crunchy kimchi and seasonings—can be eaten any time you're craving a flavorful, meaty feast.

Bossam (Korean Boiled Pork Belly Wraps) This Bossam recipe highlights Korean boiled pork belly, slow-cooked and served wrapped in napa cabbage leaves with various side dishes. It's a healthy and delicious Korean meal.

Instructions. Add pork, salt, onion and water to cover in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer in medium low for 45 minutes. Prep sides while waiting.

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.

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

Bossam is a delicious and flavorful pork dish served with sides such as spicy radish salad, raw garlic slices, bossam sauce, salted shrimp sauce or kimchi .

But when they did eat meat, they would often chose pork, as it was relatively inexpensive compared to other meat sources. Containing a lot of fat, pork belly in particular was sold at a lower price.

What do Koreans eat with pork belly? ›

Kimchi (to eat as side dish and to grill) Korean Chive Salad (enhances the taste!!) Mushroom, onion, and garlic (to grill) Japchae, seasoned spinach, seasoned bean sprouts, Korean lettuce salad, shrimp, etc.

To cook pork belly properly, we have to give it the time and temperatures it needs to render both the fat and the collagen. This usually means low, slow cooking. Any meat will expel its available free water at temperatures above 180°F (82°C), becoming tough and dry.

boiling water trick

This one is lesser known, however, once you have done all the hard work of drying out the skin, go ahead and place the roast on a rack and pour boiling water over the skin, whilst it is in the sink. This helps to prep the skin to crackle as its now "pre-cooked" so to speak.

Mix vinegar, baking soda and salt, and baste over the skin, saving a little for an extra baste later. The vinegar will help remove any additional moisture and the baking soda will help the skin bubble. Place in the middle of the oven and roast for approximately 1-1.5 hours depending on the size of the pork belly.

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. This custom changes the fate of Ba-woo (Jung Il-woo), when he mistakenly kidnaps Yi Su-kyeong (Kwon Yu-ri), the King's widowed daughter.

*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). Gui refers to roasted, baked, or grilled dishes.