Daepa Jeyuk-bokkeum (Scallion Pork Stir-fry) · Paik Jong-won

Halve the green onions lengthways and cut them into 5 cm lengths. Slice the Cheongyang chilies thickly on the diagonal.

Slice the garlic into thick coins and cut the pork belly into bite-size pieces.

💡 Thick garlic coins, not minced garlic — they need to survive the pan and turn golden and sweet rather than burn away.

Lay the pork belly in a cold-to-warm pan, season with seasoned salt and black pepper, and cook over medium-low heat.

💡 Medium-LOW, and no oil at all. You are rendering the belly's own fat, which becomes the cooking oil for everything that follows. High heat here scorches the outside before the fat ever runs.

Cook 5–7 minutes, turning once, until the edges are golden brown and a pool of clear fat has run out.

Add the sliced garlic and cook it in the rendered fat.

If the pan is swimming in fat, spoon some out — leave roughly enough to coat everything.

💡 He calls this out explicitly. Too much fat left in and the sauce slides off the meat instead of clinging to it.

When the garlic has turned golden at the edges, add the sugar and stir-fry it into the hot fat.

💡 Sugar before soy sauce, always. It melts and lightly caramelises against the pan — that faint toffee smell is the flavour you are after.

The moment you smell that caramel, pour the soy sauce around the rim of the pan — not over the meat — and let it hiss and scorch on the bare metal for a few seconds before tossing everything together.

💡 This is the trick the whole dish turns on. Soy hitting bare hot metal burns off into a smoky aroma — Korean cooks call it 불향. Pour it straight onto the meat and it just steams and tastes salty.

Add the green onions and both chili powders, coarse and fine, and stir-fry over medium-high heat.

Pour in the water and keep tossing so the seasoning loosens and coats every piece instead of clumping.

💡 The water is not for a sauce — it is there to stop the chili powder catching on the dry pan and turning bitter.

Add the Cheongyang chilies, then — while the green onion is still bright and only just wilting — add the black pepper and sesame oil and toss once to combine.

💡 Beginner warning: stop here. He is explicit that the pepper and sesame oil go in BEFORE the green onion collapses. Cook it limp and you lose the sweet, snappy scallion that names the dish.

Turn it out onto a plate, scatter with ground sesame, and serve with rice — or with lettuce and perilla leaves and a dab of ssamjang to wrap.