Osam Bulgogi (Spicy Squid and Pork Stir-Fry)

Prep Ahead

1. If you are going to make fried rice at the end, cook rice or take out cold rice from the fridge. Or heat up/thaw frozen rice.
2. If using frozen squid, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. If in a hurry, squid thaws pretty quickly if you put the package in room temp water or put the whole squid inside a plastic bag and thaw in a bowl of water.
3. If you can't buy pre-cut pork belly slices, freeze pork belly for a quick hour or so and then slice it into 1/4 inch slice across the grain.

Clean Squid

1. Clean squid by cutting the belly side open, removing the guts, mouth and eyes. You can also peel the skin by sprinkling some salt and then using the salt to grab onto the skin. Otherwise, it can be quite slippery and hard to hold on to the skin.
2. Cut squid into 1/2 inch wide and 2.5 to 3 inch long strips. Watch my video to see how. Set aside.

Make Sauce

1. In a bowl, add gochujang, gochukaru (korean red chili powder), maple syrup, green plum syrup, soy sauce, mirin or cooking sake, sesame oil, chopped garlic, chopped ginger and sugar. Read my Chef's tips above for substitution tips for maple syrup and green plum syrup.
2. Divide the sauce equally into 2 separate bowls and in one bowl, add pork, sauce and massage with your hands a bit and leave it. In a second bowl, add the squid and sauce and mix. Leave both for 15 min at least or longer. Can refrigerate overnight.

Prepare vegetables

1. Peel onions and carrots. Cut onion into 1/4 inch thick slices and carrots into 1/8th inch thick slices. Cut green cabbage into similar sizes as the squid - into long strips. If you like spicy, slice some Korean green chili peppers or Jalapeno peppers.

Optional Herbs to Use (Perilla or Minari or even just green onions)

1. If you have Perilla leaves, wash, rinse and dry Perilla leaves. Cut into 1/3 inch wide strips. We will add this at the very end right before turning heat off.
2. I didn't have Perilla so I used Minari (water dropwort). Rinse, clean off rotted leaves and then cut away the thick and fibrous stems and use the more tender part above that. Cut into 2 inch lengths including leaves if they are tender.
3. Additionally, you may want to add soybean sprouts - just rinse and pick out black rotted ones.
4. Add all of the vegetables (except the minari/perilla/sprouts) to the bowl with squid and toss them to coat the vegetables with sauce. Heat up the pan on medium heat and start cooking the pork belly. Cook for about 1 minute on each side until mostly cooked and then cut it into smaller pieces with scissors. Lower the heat or turn off if it's starting to burn. (You can also pre-cut the pork belly into smaller pieces)

Time to cook!

1. Heat a non-stick frying pan on medium heat. Add the squid and vegetables to the pan with pork and cook everything together for 2-3 min. until everything is cooked and most of the sauce has been reduced. If adding soybean sprouts, you should add them at this stage and cook everything together. Don't crowd the pan and add too much because then you will have a soggy dish.
2. Turn off heat when everything is cooked. Squid cooks quickly so be careful not to overcook it. Add your fresh herbs - perilla or minari and stir so they are just very lightly cooked by the residual heat. If making fried rice, save some fresh perilla or minari for that.
3. Time to serve! Enjoy with some rice now or wait a bit and and make my favorite osam fried rice (Osam Bokkeum Bap)!

Make Leftover Fried Rice (optional but a very happy belly)

1. After you have enjoyed most of the Osam Bulgogi, you can put some of the leftovers back into the pan or leave some in the pan from the beginning. Add rice (just enough so it's covered with sauce), mix until rice is all coated and then stir fry for 20-30 seconds. Then flatten the rice out so you can make the bottom a little burnt and crispy. Leave for couple of minutes on medium-low heat. Add the fresh herbs right before serving.