Boil

Gomtang (Beef Bone Soup)

May  8, 2021
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0 Ratings
Photo by Julia Gartland. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth. Food Stylist: Sam Seneviratne.
  • Prep time 1 hour
  • Cook time 5 hours
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

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

Test Kitchen Notes

Featured in: A Nourishing Soup To Heal the Cracks. —The Editors

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Ingredients
  • 3 1/2 pounds cow heel bones
  • 2 pounds beef brisket
  • 5 to 6 garlic cloves
  • 4 scallions, chopped
  • Sea salt, to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • Cooked short-grain white rice, for serving
Directions
  1. Soak the cow heel bones and beef brisket, separately, in water for at least an hour.
  2. Smash the garlic.
  3. Rinse the bones. Fill a pot with water, leaving room for boiling. Bring the pot to a boil. Add the bones and garlic.
  4. Boil (not simmer) over medium-high heat, with constant medium-size bubbles, for at least 5 hours. About 1 hour into boiling, add the brisket and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until soft. Add more boiling water when the liquid level in the pot drops.
  5. After 5 hours of boiling, the broth will turn thick and white. Hand-shred the brisket into chunks and chop scallions for garnish.
  6. Ladle the soup into a bowl. Leave all the bones in the pot so that you can keep boiling the other batches. Top with shredded brisket and scallions. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with cooked rice.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

Recipe by: Caroline Shin

My food obsession started with kimchi-making lessons with my sassy, adorable, North Korean-refugee granny in Flushing, Queens, and flourished with a monstrous appetite that got appeased in the most diverse area of the planet: Queens, NYC. Follow my work on CookingWithGranny.tv and @CookingWGranny on Instagram.

3 Reviews

anne May 8, 2021
Why is it that in the story she uses femur bones and a chuck roast, but the recipe calls for a brisket and heel bones, which in all my years of cooking I have never seen nor heard of. Something isn't right. I hate this kind of thing.
Arati M. May 9, 2021
Hi Anne. Thank you for reading this essay, and noting the recipe. This recipe is the writer’s mother’s original (and not the rendition she made that night, as she mentions in the headnote of this recipe) that she has generously shared with us through what has been a very trying period. I do hope that you will still make it.
pizzabagelbites May 19, 2021
You can usually find cow heel/trotters at Asian markets. Tail is Another popular alternative that many Korean families use for gomtang.