Ramen is a very popular noodle soup in Japan. Ramen noodles are originally Chinese style noodles, but it’s been changed and improved over the years, and evolved to our own food.
There are millions of Ramen restaurants in Japan from mom and pop Chinese restaurants in neighborhoods, Ramen street carts open late at night, to sophisticated Ramen specialty shops in cities. People don’t mind lining up for hours to get in as long as it’s good. Fresh noodles are the best, but another form of Ramen that is very popular is instant noodles. It’s become a whole food sub-culture in Japan. There are millions of kinds you can buy at supermarkets. Some are so good that they taste better than bad Ramen shops.
Ramen Recipe
Prep Time: 15 hours
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 3-4 servings
Ingredients
Salted pork
1 lb pork
1 tsp salt
Soup
6 cups water (1.5L)
50g ginger root, sliced
3 cloves garlic, skinned
1 bunch green onions
4 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp sake
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
Noodles
9 oz fresh angel hair pasta (225g)
8 cups water (2L)
2 Tbsp baking soda
Topping
boiled egg halves
bean sprouts, blanched briefly
green onions, cut finely
Instructions
Rub salt on pork and let it sit overnight in the fridge.
In a pot, put water, ginger root, garlic, green onions and salted pork, and boil at high heat. Skim fat and other floating scums. Then cover, reduce to low heat, and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Let the broth and pork cool completely in pot. Strain and save pork. Slice pork and set aside for a topping.
Prepare the rest of the toppings now as well (boiled eggs, blanched bean sprouts, cut green onions), before making the soup and noodles. Once the noodles are cooked, you will need to add the soup and toppings right away or the noodles will get soft, so you won't have time to prepare the toppings at the end.
Boil the broth and add soy sauce, sake, salt and sesame oil. Let it simmer at very low heat until noodles are ready.
In boiling water in a pot, add baking soda (be careful, it may boil over), then add the fresh angel hair pasta. Cook the pasta for 30 seconds, and strain. Immediately divide noodles into bowls and add soup onto noodles. Top with boiled eggs, bean sprouts, green onions and sliced pork.
The other half of Ramen is the soup. Generally speaking, there are three basic types of Ramen soups: Shyoyu (soy sauce), Miso, and Shio (salt). Usually pork, chicken or seafood broth is used for the base of the soup, and that is then seasoned with soy sauce, miso, or salt. We made the very basic soy sauce flavor soup in this recipe. However, as mentioned above, there are many Ramen shops, and so many combinations of flavors for soups. If you want to play around and experiment, go for it.
You can invest lots of time and ingredients and research complicated and unusual soups, and it is hard to beat Ramen at great restaurants, of course, but our version here is pretty good for homemade Ramen and really very simple to make.