Everyone that loves to cook thinks their mom is the best cook. My mom isn’t. But she’s more importantly, my favorite cook. Whenever I came home from school, I’d get off the bus with a sense of excitement knowing there would always be some kind of stew waiting on the stovetop. Some days it’s dwengjang jjigae (fermented soybean soup), some days it’s dakdoritang (chicken braised in a gochujjang base), some days it was dduk gook (rice cake stew), and some days it was kkori gomtang (oxtail soup).
Atlanta would get cold in the wintertime, but never as cold as NYC. But cold enough to start craving kkori gomtang - and it was always obvious when she started a massive pot of it because the whole house would smell like milky beef bone broth.
This dish best embodies the way Koreans cook to me. Meticulous in the prep work, yet rustic, affordable, so easy to do, and can be stretched for days. The perfect broth to dump kimchi broth into. The perfect medium to eat rice through. Seasoned right before you eat. Piled on with scallions and black pepper. Oxtails blasted for so long that they fall off the bone. And the best part was sucking out all the connective tissue and collagen that is hidden within the tail bones.
There’s no exact recipe for this. It’s hard to fuck up so you’re in good hands. You just need copious amounts of beef bones, water, and time. You have to make a massive batch when you do this. When you make this you have to mentally prepare to eat kkori gomtang for the next few days - there’s no way around it. But there’s no way to be mad about it either.