Beer Braised Barbecue Pork Butt

Memorial Day weekend. Seattle does this thing in late May where the sun comes out like it's been hiding for nine months — which it has — and the entire city collectively loses its mind with joy. People emerge blinking from their apartments, pale and vitamin D-deficient, and converge on parks and patios and any flat surface that faces the sky. I am not immune to this. I took my laptop to Volunteer Park on Saturday and sat on the grass and worked on a personal coding project while the sun did something to my face that I think is called "warmth."

The kimchi is ready. One week of fermentation at room temperature, and when I opened the jar on Monday morning, the smell was different — deeper, more complex, the sharp edge softened into something rounded and sour and alive. I tasted it and the difference was immediate. This wasn't the bright, fresh kimchi of a week ago. This was fermented, transformed, the cabbage tender, the flavors layered. It tasted like the kimchi at Hodori. It tasted like the kimchi from H Mart. It tasted — and I'm aware of how this sounds, but I'm going to say it anyway — it tasted like Korea. Like the Korea I imagine, which is the only Korea I have, since I've never been to the real one.

I made kimchi jjigae on Tuesday. With my own kimchi this time. I followed the recipe more carefully: sautéed pork belly (which I had to go to H Mart specifically to buy, because QFC on Broadway does not carry pork belly, because Capitol Hill is many things but a Korean grocery destination it is not), added the aged kimchi, poured in anchovy stock (I made the stock! From the dried anchovies and kelp I bought! I felt like a medieval alchemist!), simmered it for thirty minutes with tofu and scallions. The apartment smelled like a Korean grandmother's kitchen, or what I imagine a Korean grandmother's kitchen smells like, based on the fourteen Maangchi videos I've watched and the one meal I ate at Hodori.

The jjigae was right. Not perfect — the pork was cut too thick, the broth needed more salt — but the foundation was right. The fermented sourness of the kimchi had melted into the broth, giving it that deep, funky backbone I'd been missing with store-bought kimchi. I ate two bowls. I ate a third bowl standing at the counter. The Zojirushi played its little song when the rice was done, and I scooped rice into my bowl with the jjigae, and the combination — sour, spicy, porky, with the clean neutrality of perfect rice — was the best thing I have ever made. Not the best thing I've eaten, because Hodori is still better, because twenty-two years of Korean grandmothers' experience beats three weeks of YouTube tutorials. But the best thing I've made. And that matters differently.

Memorial Day: I drove to Bellevue for a barbecue. David grilled burgers and hot dogs, the classic American Memorial Day spread, and I brought my kimchi jjigae in a pot. Karen set it on the table next to the potato salad and coleslaw, and the visual was perfect — three containers of American comfort food and one pot of Korean stew, which is basically the layout of my entire identity. Kevin FaceTimed and asked if I'd brought the kimchi and I held the pot up to the camera and he said, "Tell me everything." I walked him through the recipe while David flipped burgers and Karen arranged napkins and the sun set over Bellevue in that gaudy Pacific Northwest way that makes everything look like a tourism brochure.

Karen tried the jjigae. She ate a full bowl. She said, "Stephanie, this is really good," and she sounded surprised, which was slightly offensive but also fair, because three weeks ago I couldn't make rice without burning it. David tried a spoonful, said, "Spicy," and went back to his burger. David is a man of limited culinary adventurousness, and I love him for the things he is, not the things he isn't. That's something I'm learning — to love the Parks for who they are, not who I needed them to be. It's a lesson I'm nowhere near done learning.

On the drive home, full of kimchi jjigae and burgers and the particular warmth of family barbecues, I thought about birth mothers and kimchi and the weird, winding path that connects them. Three months ago, I ate takeout every night. Now I make kimchi from scratch. Three months ago, I had never walked into a Korean restaurant alone. Now I go to Hodori on Saturdays. Three months ago, the silence in my condo was empty. Now it's — not full, exactly, but less empty. Populated. There's rice in the cooker and kimchi in the jar and gochugaru on the shelf, and these small Korean things are taking up space in my American life, and the space they take up is the exact shape of the thing that was missing.

I don't know where this goes. I don't know if I'll ever learn Korean or visit Korea or find my birth mother. I don't know if the thing I'm building in my kitchen — this collection of ingredients and recipes and skills — will ever become the identity I'm looking for, or if it'll just be good food, which would also be fine. But I know this: the kimchi jjigae is mine now. I made it. With my kimchi, my pork, my anchovy stock, my hands. And it was good. It was really good. And for now, standing in my kitchen at twenty-two with red-stained fingers and a full stomach and the sun going down over Capitol Hill — for now, that's enough.

David’s burgers were good — classic, reliable, exactly what Memorial Day asks for — but watching him work the grill in Bellevue made me want to bring something equally all-in the next time, something that earns its place on that table with the same slow patience I’d put into the jjigae. This beer braised barbecue pork butt is that dish: pork that braises low and long until it surrenders completely, the beer and smoke and sauce doing the same kind of quiet transformation work that a week of fermentation did to my kimchi. It’s an American recipe I can stand behind, made with the same conviction I’m learning to bring to everything else in my kitchen.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours 45 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

4 to 5 lb bone-in pork butt (pork shoulder)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bottle (12 oz) dark beer, such as a stout or amber ale
1 1/2 cups your favorite BBQ sauce, divided
1 large yellow onion, sliced into rings
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Sandwich buns or cooked rice, for serving

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 325°F. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, smoked paprika, cumin, chili powder, salt, and black pepper. Pat the pork butt dry with paper towels, then rub the spice mixture evenly over the entire surface of the meat.
Sear the pork. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy oven-safe pot over medium-high heat. Once the oil is shimmering, add the pork butt and sear, undisturbed, for 3 to 4 minutes per side until a deep brown crust forms on all sides. Transfer the pork to a plate.
Build the braise. Reduce heat to medium. Add the sliced onion to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the beer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir in 3/4 cup of the BBQ sauce.
Braise low and slow. Return the seared pork to the pot, nestling it into the liquid. The liquid should come about 1/3 of the way up the sides of the pork. Cover tightly with the lid and transfer to the oven. Braise for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, turning the pork once halfway through, until the meat is completely fork-tender and pulling away from the bone.
Shred and sauce. Remove the pot from the oven. Transfer the pork to a large cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Using two forks, shred the meat, discarding the bone and any large pieces of fat. Skim excess fat from the braising liquid and ladle about 1/2 cup of the liquid back over the shredded pork. Stir in the remaining 3/4 cup BBQ sauce and toss to coat.
Serve. Pile the saucy shredded pork onto buns, over rice, or alongside your favorite barbecue sides. Serve immediately, with extra BBQ sauce on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Beer Braised Barbecue Pork Butt — The Other Pork at the Memorial Day Table