I'm a late 20-something political professional who likes to cook. In odd numbered years, I have time to do outdoors-y things, cook, and watch the World Series. In even numbered years I'm "a broken-down shell of a man" (according to one of my previous bosses).
But back to food. Over the years I've lived in various parts of the US, Germany, and Japan and experimented quite a lot. Over the last few weeks, I've baked a shitload of bread (experiment with this Mark Bittman recipe and thank me later), cooked a lot of polenta, and enjoyed things like salads again (after a year and some change of eating pizza and chinese takeout roughage is awesome).
Tonight I made ramen. Real ramen.
Traditional ramen consists of a stock that's made fresh daily, noodles, a soy or miso-based sauce for extra flavor, and assorted garnishments. Today I made a chicken-based ramen with shoyu (soy sauce) and cha-shu pork. Done properly this takes an afternoon to prepare. The recipe as given below feeds 3-4 hungry souls (more if eaten with other food). Scale as needed.
ramen stock:
- 4 liters water
- 4 lbs chicken bones (wings and gizzards work fine)
- 2-3 large, coarsely chopped carrots
- 2-3 coarsely chopped celery ribs
- 1 coarsely chopped leek (or a bunch of green onions)
- 1/4 head of green cabbage
- 1/2 a head of garlic, peeled and bruised
- 1" piece of ginger, bruised
- 1 piece of konbu
- 1/2 cup bad sake (don't cook with the good stuff
Put the chicken bones and bits in a pot with the water and boil it. Skim off any foam or other nasty stuff.
Add all the other ingredients and simmer 2 hours minimum (more doesn't hurt). Add more water to keep the level constant as needed.
Don't let it get to a rolling boil or you'll end up with cloudy broth (watch Tampopo to learn all about this and other intricacies of ramen).
Anyway, there's your basic ramen stock. The recipe's scale-able. Make a ton and freeze the extra.
cha-shu pork
- 1 lb - 1.5lb of pork belly (loin is ok too, but ideally you want belly)
- a couple green onions (scallions)
- an inch or so of ginger, peeled and sliced
- sake
- 2 cups of water
- shoyu (soy sauce)
- sugar
Before you begin, mix the water, sugar, and shoyu together in a bowl. You want roughly 3 tbsp shoyu and 1 tbsp sugar per 2 cups water, but it's all done to taste.
Toss some oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet and crank up the heat until it's almost smoking. Add scallions and ginger, cook for a minute (you want it to be really fragrant). Add the pork (if using loin you can put it in the pan as-is, if using pork belly you'll want to tie it tightly into a roll) and brown it severely on all sides (2 min or so per side).
Deglaze the pan with some sake. While you're at it, drink some sake.
Add your water-shoyu-sugar mixture. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover. If you're cooking a pork loin, 30-45 minutes of cooking should do it. If using belly, more like 90 minutes. Whichever cut you're using, turn the meat every 5-10 minutes to ensure even flavor distribution.
When the meat is cooked through, turn off the heat and leave it in the liquid to cool slowly (it absorbs extra liquid as it cools).
putting it all together
Get your broth ready, cook some noodles (you can use the dried ones from packages, but frozen noodles are better. If buying dried, look for stuff labelled chinese-style egg noodles or similar), and assemble your garnishes. Possible garnishes include:
- hard boiled eggs
- sliced green onions
- minced, toasted garlic
- various forms of seaweed
- julienned fresh bamboo
- sliced fish paste
When your noodles are cooked, put them in a bowl. Add either a tbsp of soy sauce or miso paste (amount given is a guideline, this is to taste). Ladle in enough hot broth to cover your noodles. Slice off a piece (or more) of your cha-shu pork and put it on top. Add whatever other garnishes you want. Eat.
