It actually takes about two to three hours to simmer on the stove top, but the preparation of Korean oxtail soup, ggori gook (or ggori gom-tahng) takes only six minutes. If you're fast in the kitchen like me, then you can do it in five. 

The best thing about ggori gook is there is absolutely no way to ruin it, unless you start with bad ingredients. That's why the instructions below, from Mom, are not a real recipe - eyeball the amounts, a pinch of this or that, and everything to taste.

Rinse about two pounds of oxtails under cold water. Place oxtails in a large pot, then fill with enough water to cover over the meat and bones by two times. Add four or five whole garlic cloves, lightly crushed, then simmer for two to three hours, skimming the "foam" from the surface every once in a while. Serve broth and a few oxtail bones with salt, pepper, and chopped green onions for each person to season the broth to his or her own taste.

(Here's a hint from Mom: If you want to remove a lot of the fat, prepare the soup one day in advance. Let it sit in the refrigerator over night, and the fat will harden in a solid layer on the surface that can easily be removed. Then bring it all back to a simmer before serving).

Sure, it only takes a few minutes to prep, but simmering three hours is a long time to wait, so you can also pop over to Jinju Gomtang in LA's Koreatown, where beef-based soups are the only thing they serve, 24 hours a day. Gomtang is oft-prescribed as a pre-emptive hangover cure, so don't be surprised to find the place packed with partiers slurping broth and sucking tendrils of fatty oxtail meat from bones at 2 am.

Jinju Gomtang
610 S. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90005
213.383.6789