Bossam with Oyster & Radish Salad (Gul Muchim)

⏱ 150 min · Serves 6

Silky doenjang-poached pork belly, sliced thick and wrapped in cool lettuce with a bracing salad of fresh oysters and julienned radish in chilli and pear. It's the Korean winter feast — rich, briny, crunchy and outrageously good with cold beer or soju.

Per serving: 712 kcal · 41.0g protein · 18.0g carbs · 52.0g fat

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg skin-on pork belly, in one piece
• 3 tbsp doenjang (Korean soybean paste)
• 2 tbsp instant coffee granules or 1 cup brewed coffee
• 1 onion, halved
• 1 whole head garlic, halved crosswise
• 8 cm piece ginger, sliced
• 6 spring onions, halved
• 2 tbsp mirim or sake
• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar
• 10 black peppercorns
• 3 dried bay leaves
• 300 g Korean radish (mu) or daikon, julienned
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 250 g fresh shucked oysters, rinsed in lightly salted water
• 3 tbsp gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp saeujeot (salted shrimp), finely chopped (optional)
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1/4 Korean pear or apple, grated
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• 2 heads butter lettuce, leaves separated
• 20 perilla leaves (kkaennip)
• Ssamjang, sliced raw garlic and green chilli, to serve
• Steamed short-grain rice, to serve

Method

1. Put the pork belly in a large pot with the doenjang, coffee, onion, garlic head, ginger, spring onions, mirim, brown sugar, peppercorns and bay leaves. Cover with cold water by 5 cm.
2. Bring to the boil, skim off any scum, then reduce to a bare simmer. Cook, partly covered, for 90 minutes, until a skewer slides into the thickest part with no resistance.
3. Meanwhile, toss the julienned radish with the salt and caster sugar and leave for 20 minutes. Squeeze out excess liquid firmly and discard.
4. Mix the gochugaru, fish sauce, saeujeot, grated garlic, ginger, pear, rice vinegar and sesame oil into a paste. Fold through the drained radish until evenly coated, then leave 15 minutes to mellow.
5. Rinse the oysters gently in salted water, drain very well on kitchen paper, then fold into the radish with the sesame seeds and spring onions just before serving. Keep chilled.
6. Turn off the heat and let the pork rest in its broth for 15 minutes — this keeps it juicy. Lift out and drain.
7. Slice the warm pork about 7 mm thick across the grain and fan onto a warm platter.
8. Serve with the lettuce and perilla leaves, the oyster radish salad, ssamjang, raw garlic, chilli and rice. Build wraps: leaf, rice, pork, a dab of ssamjang, then a generous pinch of the oyster salad. Eat in one bite.