stupendous bo ssam.

okay, so i am not gonna lie..this recipe was daunting. first, the sheer quantity of meat. second, the overnight rest and six hours of cooking. third, where to procure kimchi? but all of these hurdles were easily overcome. at the end of the video, dude definitely says “it was six dollars for a four pound shoulder,” so i made the executive decision that this family was gonna use a four pound hunk of pork. done. the cooking time, while a bit unnerving is not that bad. after all, you only have to visit with the oven once every hour, so you can work on something else (like sewing a quilt) while you wait. finally, after reading the recipe countless times, it finally sunk in that the kimchi is used as a condiment…if it is missing, the meal will still go on.

the shopping list. naturally you have to gather the ingredients for the main recipe, but it must also be noted that this recipe calls for two sauces, which you need to make. like the kimchi, these are condiments, so you can probably buy something similar, but they are DELICIOUS and easy to make yourself. check out this bo ssam sauces post for the ingredients and instructions. i have to admit that i was not motivated to go on a kimchi hunt and it was not at our store, so we went without. the hunk of meat was readily available in the regular grocery store. i bought a half shoulder, because four pounds seems much more manageable. also i could not find bibb or butter lettuce, but luckily discovered that this is also called boston lettuce, which was plentiful. 

the cooking. so you wanna know how it went? weeeellll..it was definitely an interesting adventure. my plans went a bit astray on cook day, so i did not get started until 7:0opm, which meant the cooking continued until almost 2:00am. agg. the pork did not seem to give off a lot of juices, so i was “basting” with bits of blackened goo that were collecting in one corner of the pan. with about an hour to go i made the sauces and rice. relatively uneventful. carmelizing the sugar was a bit disastrous, because the drippings started burning and smoke was pouring out of the oven. yikes. but at 2 o’clock in the morning, after charbroiling our roasting pan and smoking up the entire house, the mister and i took our first bite of bo ssam. words cannot express the deliciousness. sooooooo goooooood. we had seconds. at 2:30am. on a school night. ridiculously scrumptious. ate it cold at lunch today. a. m. a. z. i. n. g.

bo ssam sauces and rice.

you might have noticed that the bo ssam recipe asks for 1 cup of a ginger-scallion sauce and 1 cup of a jalapeño-garlic sauce, but there are no instructions. luckily the sauce creation is in the video. since i already went through the video to unearth the ingredients and directions, i thought i would share to save y’all that step. also the rice is prepared similar to sushi rice, so I have included the instructions for that as well.

ginger-scallion sauce. combine ingredients and stir.

½ cup scallions, chopped

1 large pinch of salt

fresh black pepper

1 tsp soy sauce

a few shakes of vinegar

¼ cup neutral oil (example: grapeseed oil)

1 piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped (about a thumb-size piece)

jalapeño-garlic sauce. combine ingredients (except oil) in blender. start blender and slowly drizzle in oil.

2 jalapeños, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped

salt

pepper

dash of soy sauce

dash vinegar

neutral oil (an oil with a neutral taste, for example: grapeseed oil)

rice. rinse rice in cool water. bring rice and water to a boil. cover and simmer on low for 20 minutes. dissolve sugar in rice wine vinegar. mix into rice.

1 cup short grain rice (example: sushi rice)

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 ¼ cups water