When I was in South-Korea a few years ago, it wasn’t a culinary love at first taste. I did adore the hotel breakfast – the selection was insane, from an amazing barley-watermelon salad to the quickly assembled bespoke soups -, but otherwise I was working and food was secondary. I was also jet-lagged most of the time and as I cannot tolerate much heat in my food, many traditional Korean dishes (like the wonderful kimchi) were difficult for me.

On my way home, however, I noticed in the airport mountains of packets of something I couldn’t quite identify. But as everyone was buying the stuff like crazy, I thought I better get some, too. It turned out to be dried, roasted and seasoned seaweed (gim): it is very thin, crispy and tastes a bit like nori, but lighter and much better. After my first packet, I was completely hooked and dried laver is one of my absolute favourite snack until this day. If you haven’t tried it, look for it in places where Asian food is sold, on- and offline. Or maybe don’t, you could be addicted for life.

So I spent the following years looking for my next seaweed fix and preparing an occasional bibimbap. This is probably the most famous Korean dish in the west – rice with different vegetables, sometimes with shredded beef and egg added, and accompanied by the red pepper paste (gochujang). I like it quite a bit, as it’s very open to improvisation – you can choose exactly the type of vegetables you like and easily vary the level of spicyness. I tend to include meat, cucumber, spinach, mushrooms and sprouts. It’s not difficult to prepare, but somewhat time consuming (best to cook it when you have lots of willing help) and you need to time things right. But the result is satisfyingly multifaceted.

But I didn’t find my true Korean love until I made bo ssam for the very first time – laver might be addictive, but not that filling. Many of you already know of my passion for slow cooking big chunks of meat and bo ssam is a beautiful, beautiful variation on that theme. It is essentially pork dry-marinated in salt and sugar, slow cooked and then caramelized on top. Eaten wrapped in salad leaves with plain rice, scallion-ginger condiment and sauces, it’s amazing stuff. I made it after this Momofuku recipe, but as my pork shoulder was smaller, I cooked it at 140 degrees (I could even have gone for lower temperature, as mu oven tends to overshoot). And as I’m challenged in the hotness department, I made my own sauce of fermented soya bean paste (doenjang), canola oil, sherry vinegar and some salt and it was excellent.

If you ever need to feed a crowd, but are bored with the traditional chicken or stews, I suggest you give this a try. Unfortunately, as I cook for people not for the blog, I don’t have any pictures to share – food is inevitably ready too late to photograph with an iPhone and so you have to trust me when I say: reader, I made it, and so should you.

PS I am very much aware that there is much, much more to Korean food, these are personal highlights only.