My mom learned to make gomtang from her mother, who was taught by her mother. It is a recipe that embodies generations of love and decades of nurture, which fed sick, feverish children and energized fatigued families. And so when my nurse mom, who had been tending to COVID-19 patients, came down with the illness during a New York City nightmare of ventilator scarcity and anti-Asian violence, I reached for this soup. But that time—and for the first time—I cooked it for her.
I made a set-it-and-forget-it Instant Pot rendition that night, but my mom would boil it for hours, even days. After the first batch of soup is consumed, we would fill up the pot of bones with more water and boil again for another four hours or so. To achieve the creamy white color, the soup must be boiled with steady medium-sized bubbles. Aside from this one simple rule, there is no real wrong or measured way to make this. The bones can be reused until they no longer grant a rich flavor.
My mom’s gomtang is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s a gift traditionally given by Korean mothers to their children, but during a public health crisis—of the viral and racial sort—it’s a gift given by this one particular daughter to her mother.
Note: Once done, the bones are still good for more soup. And it's not necessary to empty the broth from the pot. Keep boiling the bones with garlic, to taste, another 3 to 4 hours, adding boiling water as you go. (There's no science to this. We'll have this boiling on the back burner for days. If we want it more garlicky that day, we add garlic.)
—Caroline Shin
Featured in: A Nourishing Soup To Heal the Cracks. —The Editors
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