KOREAN FOOD

Bossam is a type of ssam in Korean cuisine in which steamed pork is wrapped in a leaf vegetable such as red lettuce or sesame leaf, often accompanied by a condiment known as ssamjang. To see a visual illustration, click here.

It is usually topped with raw or cooked garlic, onion, pepper, or, most commonly, sweet kimchi. Bossam is also preferred to be eaten with saeujeot (pickled fermented shrimp). Bossam is a popular dish in Korea, and can also be served as an anju (side dish consumed while drinking soju).

Daeji Bulgogi is another popular Korean meat dish similar to bulgogi.  However, instead of using beef, thin sliced pork loin is marinated in a specially blended red chili pepper paste with various assortments of vegetables. The meat is marinated with a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sugar, ginger roots, rice wine and gochujang which is the base sauce for this dish. It is marinated for 30-60 minutes to bring out the depth and intensity of flavors.

Daeji bulgogi can be grilled or pan-cooked and it is usually served with a side of lettuce, spinach, or other leafy vegetable, which is used to wrap a slice of cooked meat.  It is often times wrapped along with a dab of ssamjang, kimchi, or other side dishes, and then eaten as a whole. Daeji means pork in Korean and bulgogi is the word for fire meat, therefore, it translates into pork fire meat. Since gochujang is the base sauce to this dish, it can get spicy in taste.

Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish consisting of fermented chili peppers and vegetables, usually based on cabbage. It is suspected that the name kimchi originated from shimchae (salting of vegetable) which went through some phonetic changes: shimchae > dimchae > kimchae > kimchi.

Common ingredients include Chinese cabbage, radish, garlic, red pepper, spring onion, ginger, salt, and sugar. While kimchi is generally identified internationally as Chinese cabbage fermented with a mixture of red pepper, garlic, ginger, and salted fish sauce, several types of kimchi exists, including regional and seasonal variations. There are variants, including kkakdugi, based on radish and containing no cabbage.