I've only been to Momofuku Ssam Bar in NYC once, but the one time I did eat there, the food was great. One of Momofuku Ssam Bar's most famous dishes is the Bo Ssam, which essentially is a slow roasted pork shoulder. Over the weekend when I saw pork shoulder boston butt available at BJ's, I thought of Momofuku's version and wanted to try to recreate it.
The NY times has a recipe posted online for the Bo Ssam, and it basically calls for doing a cure on the pork shoulder, then slow cooking it in the oven for several hours. In making my version, I decided to change a few steps in the process.
Instead of rubbing the salt and sugar curing mixture on the pork, I created a brine using Modernist Cuisine's basic brine recipe of 7% salt and 3% sugar. I figured the brine would allow the sugar and salt to penetrate the meat more quickly. Before work in the morning, I removed the bone from the pork shoulder and put the pork into the brine.
Here's a picture of the pork shoulder I purchased from BJ's...
Deboning the pork shoulder...
Measuring the water for the brine (although I really didn't end up needing this much)...
....and measuring the salt (not pictured is the sugar)...
Brining the pork shoulder in the fridge...
When I came back home from work later that night, I removed the pork pieces from the brine, rinsed them off, and placed them in new Ziploc bags. MC recommends letting any protein rest for a period of time after brining to let the salt finish diffusing throughout the meat, but I just skipped over this step as I wanted to get the cooking started so the pork would be ready for dinner the next day.
Instead of roasting the pork in the oven, I decided to sous vide it for a couple of reasons. One, I had other things to do (e.g. sleep, go to work, run errands) and didn't want to have to baby sit a hot oven. Two, the low and slow cooking of sous vide would really benefit the tough cut that is pork shoulder. So I set my Sous Vide Supreme to 160 degrees F and then dropped the pork in to cook. I put the pork in around 6pm and let it cook for the next 24 hours, taking it out the following day to eat for dinner.
Pictured above is what the pork shoulder looks like right out of the water bath. As you can see, a lot of liquid and fat has been expelled by the pork.
Don't throw away all of the accumulated juices in the bags. The fat can be skimmed off, and the remaining pork liquid can be used later as a pork broth or base for a soup (e.g. ramen, other type of sauce).
I took the sous vide pork shoulder and then placed it in a roasting tray. I covered the pork with brown sugar and then blasted it in a hot 500 degree F oven for 10-15 minutes until the pork was nicely caramelized and brown, as shown below.
After the pork came out of the oven, I shredded all of the meat and mixed it together with the sugar and juices at the bottom of the roasting pan.
As I was preparing the pork, I prepped the other ingredients for the dish. David Chang recommends eating the pork shoulder with lettuce cups and all kinds of different condiments, but the pork is very versatile and I decided to use the pork for a noodle dish instead.
Here's what I used for the noodle dish - lime, scallions, oyster mushrooms, one thai bird chili (seeds removed), two garlic cloves, soba, and a few eggs (to be poached).
Soba cooking in boiling water...
.JPG)
Slices of garlic being fried in oil and then reserved for garnish...
.JPG)
Oyster mushrooms being sautéed in the garlic infused oil left over in the pan...
After poaching the two eggs in some simmering water and white vinegar, I plated up the dish. I mixed the soba noodles with some ponzu, sesame oil, and rice vinegar and piled a mound in the center of a deep bowl. On top of the noodles went the scallions, sauteed mushrooms, chili, fried garlic slices, and poached egg. I placed some pork next to the noodles and then microplaned some fine lime zest all over the top. Here's the final dish once again:
