Ingredients:

1 whole bone-in pork butt

   (8 to 10 pounds

1 cup white sugar

1 cup plus 1 Tbsp kosher salt

7 tablespoons brown sugar

 

Accompaniments

Ginger-Scallion Sauce

   (recipe to follow)

Ssam Sauce (recipe to follow)

2 cups plain white rice, cooked

3 heads bibb lettuce, leaves

   separated, washed and dried

1 dozen or more fresh

   oysters (optional)

Kimchi

Directions:

Place the pork in a large, shallow bowl. Mix the white sugar and 1 cup of the salt together in another bowl, then rub the mixture all over the meat. Cover it with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, or overnight.

When you’re ready to cook, heat oven to 300. Remove pork from refrigerator discard any juices and rinse a bit. Place the pork in a roasting pan and set in the oven and cook for approximately 6 hours, or until it collapses, yielding easily to the tines of a fork. (After the first hour, baste hourly with pan juices.) At this point, you may remove the meat from the oven and allow it to rest for up to an hour.

When your accompaniments are prepared and you are ready to serve the food, turn oven to 500. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining tablespoon of salt with the brown sugar. Rub this mixture all over the cooked pork. Place in oven for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, or until a dark caramel crust has developed on the meat. Serve hot, with the accompaniments.