Samgyeopsal

Thick pork belly grilled plain with no marinade at all, cut up with scissors in the pan and wrapped in a leaf at the table.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork.

Ingredients

For the grill

• 1 kg pork belly, skin off, in 1 cm slices
• 1 head garlic, cloves sliced
• 200 g mushrooms, halved
• 1 onion, in thick rings
• 2 green chillies, sliced

For the table

• ssamjang, as on its own page
• 2 heads soft lettuce, leaves separated
• a bunch of perilla leaves, if you can get them
• sesame oil with salt and black pepper, for dipping
• kimchi, as on its own page
• steamed short-grain rice, as on its own page

Method

1. THE PORK IS NOT MARINATED AT ALL, and that is the whole character of the dish. No soy, no sugar, no sesame -- nothing but pork and the heat. Everything that seasons it happens at the table, in the wrap: ssamjang, raw garlic, kimchi, a dip of sesame oil and salt. This is the difference from the bulgogi on this site, which is thin, marinated and sweet; put a marinade on this and the sugar burns long before a centimetre of belly is cooked through.
2. SO IT IS THICK AND IT TAKES ITS TIME. A centimetre, not the paper-thin slices bulgogi needs, and eight to ten minutes over a medium heat turning several times -- long enough for the fat to render out and the edges to crisp while the meat stays juicy. Hurried over a high heat the outside chars and the fat stays raw and rubbery, which is the one thing nobody will eat.
3. IT IS CUT UP WITH SCISSORS IN THE PAN, once the slices are nearly done. Into bite-sized pieces, so each one gets a little more browning on its cut faces and so it can be picked up with one hand and a leaf in the other.
4. AND THE GARLIC AND VEGETABLES COOK IN THE RENDERED FAT at the edge of the pan, not in oil. That fat is the point of a belly cut; pouring it off and adding oil throws away the best thing on the grill.
5. NOTHING IS PLATED. The pan goes in the middle of the table and people build their own wraps. A leaf, a piece of pork, a dab of ssamjang, a slice of raw garlic, a little kimchi, folded and eaten in one. Served already wrapped, the lettuce wilts and the whole thing stops being the meal it is.
6. Pork belly sliced 1 cm thick. No marinade, no seasoning.
7. Lettuce and perilla washed and DRIED, and piled on a board. Wet leaves will not hold a wrap.
8. Ssamjang made as on its own page and put in a small bowl. The sesame oil with a good pinch of salt and pepper in another.
9. Kimchi, rice and the sliced raw garlic set out.
10. A heavy griddle or pan heated to medium. The pork laid on with no fat added.
11. Cooked 8 to 10 MINUTES, turned 3 or 4 times, until deep gold and crisp at the edges and the fat has gone translucent.
12. The mushrooms, onion and chillies cooked at the edge of the pan in the rendered fat.
13. The slices CUT UP WITH SCISSORS in the pan and given another minute on their cut faces.
14. The pan taken to the table, and everything else with it. Eaten as it comes off, in leaves, with more pork going on as the first batch is eaten.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes