Japanese Ramen
When I started making Ramen a few years ago, I mostly tried out recipes I found online. A little later, I came across Tove Nilsson’s brilliant cookbook Ramen – Japanese Noodles and small dishes. It’s a great resource as it includes recipes for different kinds of Ramen broths and toppings but also teaches you how to create your own perfect Ramen from scratch. I adapted a few things here and there from her recipes, but thanks to the principles she perfectly explains in her book, I figured out how to make an almost perfect home-cooked Ramen – it will never beat those you get served in Japan, however.
Step 1: Pork & Chicken Broth
This is a broth that is fatty and delicious without having to cook bones or pig trotters, so it’s perfect for beginners.
Ingredients
4 liters of tap water
2 chicken thighs
400g pork belly
6g of kombu (dried seaweed)
1 handful of whole, fresh shiitake mushrooms
about 10cm of ginger root, sliced
4 whole spring onions
4 tbsp katsuboshi (dried bonito flakes)
Method
Fill a large pot (approx. 6 litres) with the water, chicken thighs, pork belly, kombu, mushrooms, ginger, and spring onions. Bring to a boil. When it starts boiling, some foam will appear on the surface. Skim it off using a spoon.
Add the bonito flakes and leave the whole thing to simmer uncovered for about 5 hours. You will realize that a lot of the fluid evaporates. Feel free to refill some more boiling water in the process. All in all, you should yield about 2.5 litres of broth from this recipe.
After 5 hours, turn off the heat and strain the broth over a fine sieve into a clean pot. Save the meat. You can use it as a topping (see below). Discard the bones, greens, and mushrooms. Keep the broth warm until you are ready to serve your Ramen – or let it cool and reheat it later.
Step 2: The Flavorings & Tare
You mix the tare with the broth in the individual Ramen bowls right before serving to preserve all the flavours. The possibilities are endless, but these are the two flavouring options I like to go for:
Miso
The most popular flavouring is miso. There are different kinds of miso you can use. My favourite is the Maru-Yu Mutenka Organic Miso from Hikari, a hearty red miso, but you can use any other miso.
It will depend on the size of your bowls, but you will probably need about one heaped tablespoon of miso per bowl. Remember: stir it into the bowl with the broth right before serving. Don’t cook the miso!
Miso & Sesame Tare
This tare will give your Ramen a bit more depth and also make thicker. Mix together about six tablespoons of miso paste with three tablespoons of Japanese sesame paste or tahini. Again, only mix this with your broth in the bowls before serving.
You can easily store any leftovers of the mix in a tight-fitting jar in the fridge for a couple of days up to several weeks.
Additional Flavoring
Bonito Salt: Crush two teaspoons of katsuobushi (bonito flakes) with 65 grams of salt using a pestle and mortar. Add to the Ramen to your taste. You can store this in a jar in your spice cabinet and use it for many other purposes. It is pure umami that also works well in salad dressings or on eggs.
If you want to add some heat, chilli oil will do the trick.
Step 3: Soy Sauce Pickled Eggs
A must-have topping for your Ramen – and super easy to make, just be sure you prepare these at least 10 hours before serving the Ramen. The longer these pickle in the soy sauce the better they get!
Ingredients
2-4 eggs (one per bowl)
100ml water
100ml Japanese soy sauce
4 tablespoons mirin
Method
Bring a pan of water to a boil and cook the eggs for about 6 minutes until soft-boiled. Rinse the eggs with cold water to cool them down.
While cooking the eggs, bring water, soy sauce and miring to a boil and simmer the concoction for 5 minutes. Put in a jar that will fit the marinade and the eggs and leave to cool.
Peel the cold eggs – be careful to keep them intact – then add to the marinade. Store them in the fridge for at least 10 hours or up to three days.
STep 4: More Toppings
The Left-over Meat from the Broth
After cooking the meat in the broth for 5 hours, it will turn into something similar to pulled pork (with a bit of chicken). Don't discard this meat. Just make sure that you removed all the bones, heat a little bit of vegetable oil in a pan and fry the meat. When it turns slightly brown and crispy, add some splashes of soy sauce, some mirin, and some sesame. Wait until the water evaporates and you have a good portion of umami-packed meat to add to your soup.
Shiitake Mushrooms
Another good thing to add are chopped-up Shiitake Mushrooms. Again, heat some vegetable oil in a pan, fry the mushrooms and add a bit of bonito salt to season them.
Step 5: The Ramen Noodles
Obviously, you can make the Ramen noodles yourself, but I have yet to tackle this challenge. So far I picked up frozen Ramen noodles from the store that you just cook in a pot of boiling water for about 1.5 minutes and then drain.
Step 6: Assemble Your Ramen
When it is time to assemble the finished Ramen soup, reheat the broth if needed and preheat the bowls with some boiling water. Cook the noodles at the very last moment. While they cook, discard the hot water from the bowls, add your tare and broth and whisk until everything is blended together. Drain the noodles and add them to the bowls. Loosen them up a little using some chopsticks. Halve the pickled eggs and arrange them in the bowl with the meat and mushrooms. Add some chopped-up spring onions and some sesame seeds and you are ready to slurp away.
Now, enjoy!
