Dak-gomtang (Chicken Bone Soup)

Dak-gomtang lives or dies by the simmer. Boil it hard and the broth turns rough, the meat tightens, and the pot tastes tired before it reaches the table. Keep it steady and quiet, and one modest chicken gives you broth, meat, and supper for four.

This is not samgyetang, the stuffed summer chicken with ginseng and sweet rice. Dak-gomtang is plainer, more frugal, and more useful. My teacher would pull the meat when it was just cooked, then put the bones back in the pot. That is the part people skip. Meat and bones do not need the same time, and a good cook respects the difference.

Tonight this dish asks for patience, not difficulty. Skim the first scum, keep the aromatics simple, shred the meat by hand while it is warm, and season the bowl at the end so the chicken still tastes like chicken. Write it down. Memory is a borrowed bowl.