Awesome. Thank you both.
Talked about this dish too much now… gonna have to go get a shoulder today.
One thing I do wonder… mine rarely look as collapsed as the ones pictured. I wonder if a shoulder commonly gets cut different ways and if the terms “butt, boston butt, etc” are at all meaningful. Mine are usually structured more narrowly. Less triangular, more rectangular.
On the sauces, I’ll add this…the ginger scallion thing first of all… it gets a little saucier as it sits… it’s really not a sauce at all though… it’s got very little liquid in it. Don’t go adding a lot of vinegar or oil to it thinking you want it more saucy.
And since some of you might not have easy access to the specific korean things he mentions… on the chili paste… you get a fermented bean and chili sauce… and to it I add that rooster brand chili and garlic sauce instead of the straight chili paste that he calls for… it’s killer. Those sirahcha guys know what’s up. I had a friend here, and I said, so how is it? – as good as Momofuku’s? (which we’ve both had) and I swear he said, "it’s great, and it tastes the same, but… I don’t remember anything at Momofuku tasting as good as THAT. And he points to the ssam sauce I made with that rooster chili and garlic product – otherwise following the recipe.
And I’d have to go back to Momofuku and pay 200 bucks to see if I agree, and that ain’t gonna happen. But it certainly should stop you turkeys from looking all over town trying to find the exact stuff the recipe names. If you’ve got the fermented bean sauce and some chili sauce, and you knock it down with the oil and vinegar, you’re there.
At a super bowl type party, I’d make two.This thing gets “WOW’s” from newcomers. It’s a freakishly good dish. So simple. So astonishing. Soooo unrelated to the bo ssam that would be a throwaway at an ordinary korean restaurant.
[quote=“Z Scheiner”][quote=“Dennis Atick”][quote=“brianmcbrearty”]
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Good stuff today…Used a smallish butt.
Couldn’t get the kimchi I usually use, had to settle with mild white kimchi from Whole Foods.
Not quite right, but fine for what is.
Pork butt on BGE at 8am
Pork Butt at 3PM
Pork Butt at 6PM
Stuff
Bo Ssam
OMFG. I’m just waiting for the Kosher version. Can someone rewrite Leviticus for me?
Eric…
Duck?
I am kidding Rick. I can eat whatever I want out of the house. Add yes I could do a duck version (confit?) of this at home, but it’s not really the same.
I know what you can do at home Eric! TURKEY!! mmmmmmm
Next recipe in the book uses beef. Hanger Steak Ssam.
Marinated Hanger:
2 cups apple juice
1/2 cup light soy
1/2 onion thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1t sesame oil
1t black pepper
(4) 8oz hanger steaks
24 hrs marinate
same accompaniments, except he leaves out the ssam sauce and the oysters.
Med rare. Sliced 1/4 inch.
Gave this a try tonight. I need to get better kim chi next time and work harder on the ssam sauce. Mine was too thin and needed to be thicker and not drip off the lettuce.
Damn this is great pork. Can’t wait to try again tomorrow.
I’m going to try it this weekend.
He’s talking about Great NY Noodletown, a Cantonese place in the city that serves the ginger scallion sauce with their soy sauce chicken, but not, in my experience (and I’ve literally been there 150+ times), with roast duck, pork or baby pig. One of Chang’s favorite dishes on the Noodletown menu is “noodles with ginger and scallion” but as I recall that dish, it’s just Cantonese-style lo mein noodles with julienned ginger and scallion but not like they dumped that sauce on a plate of fried noodles.
Two questions for those w/ Bo Ssäm experience:
What other dishes would you serve if you were making this at home?
Favorite wine to serve w/ this? Off-dry German Riesling would be my knee-jerk response…
I wouldn’t serve any other dishes along side this. This is it. You eat this till you’re ready for dessert. Seriously. And then you eat a compost cookie.
As for drinks, I usually have beer, but a spatlese would be great with it, and recently an '05 RM Occidental Ridge pn went with it remarkably well.
Christine Huang makes an insanely good Bo Ssam and I’m still typing up my notes from her Bo Ssam dinner with the Gelbs on 1/1, but Vouvray and whites with no oak, high acid and residual sugar work best. For reds, we did a lot of Rhones which worked nicely, but not as well as those types of whites.
I have one in the oven right now. As it is only for 2, I used a smaller shoulder, 5.5 lbs.
Should the cooking time be reduced? Or should I play it by fork?
The latter. The thickness of the cut I think matters more than the weight.
Turned out that exactly 6 hours was fine.