Gamja-tang 감자탕 Korean Pork Bone Soup

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 500g pork neck bones
• 2-3 tbs cooking wine
• 1/2 medium onion
• 1-2 scallions
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 2-3 pieces sliced ginger
• 5 cups water
• 1-2 medium potatoes
• 60g cabbage
• 1 large handful bean sprouts

Seasoning ingredients:

• 1 tbs gochujang
• 1 tbs doenjang
• 1-3 tbs fish sauce
• 1-2 tbs Korean chili powder
• 2-3 tbs perilla seed powder
• ground pepper to taste

(You don’t have to find the exact brands shown in the picture above)

Instructions:

1. Rinse pork neck bones with cold water until the water becomes clear ( to get rid of blood in bones).
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, blanch the cabbage, take it out and let cool. Squeeze water out of cabbage, cut into bite-sized pieces.
3. Add pork neck bones and cooking wine to the pot, bring to boil then keep boiling for 7-8 min.
4. Discard water used to boil the pork bones, replace with 5 cups clean water, add onion, scallions, garlic cloves, sliced ginger
5. Bring to boil then switch to medium heat, cook for 90 min.
6. After cooking for so long the soup turns white in colour, liquid is reduced by half. Discard all solid ingredients except for pork bones. Remove from heat.
7. Combine and mix seasoning ingredients with some pork bone soup.
8. Add bean sprouts, prepared chopped cabbage, half-cooked peeled potato (cut into quarters) and seasoning ingredients. Turn on the oven.
9. Bring soup to boil then switch to medium heat to let the soup continue boiling for about 10 min, or until potatoes are fully cooked.
10. Add more chopped scallions, ground pepper, perilla seeds powder to garnish before removing pot from heat.

Serve gamja-tang with rice and Korean appetizers if you like.

The gamja-tang is super flavorful, it makes me want to eat another bowl of rice. The meat on bones is so tender you can easily pull it off.  So happy that I no longer have to visit Korean restaurants for this delicious dish!