As featured on Demotivateur Food, here’s the detailed version of our homemade ramen recipe, complete with tips. The key is to perfectly blend all the sauce ingredients with the broth. Enjoy!
For 4 servings: Preparation and cooking time – 2 hours 30 minutes
You can use chicken carcasses and wings to reduce the budget.
• Ingredients
For the broth: 1 whole chicken (1.3 kg), 800 g fresh pork belly (unsliced, skin removed), 1 leek (green part), 100 g onion, 30 g ginger
For the sauce: 180 g Japanese soy sauce, 18 g salt, 5 g brown sugar, 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar, 2 anchovies in oil, 2 tsp fish sauce (Nuoc-mâm)
For the oil: 100 g peanut oil, Chicken fat from the broth, 40 g garlic (4 large cloves)
For the noodles: Instant ramen noodles or fresh spaghetti
For the toppings: 1 can of bamboo shoots (Suzy-wan), White part of a leek, Nori sheet, Spring onion (scallion)
• Instructions
The Broth: halve the chicken and clean it, removing any blood. Place the chicken and pork belly in 2 liters of water and bring to a boil. Skim for 5-10 minutes. Add the leek greens, halved ginger, and split onion. Simmer gently uncovered for 2 hours, maintaining the water level.
After 1 hour, remove the vegetables. After 2 hours, strain the broth without pressing the bones. Adjust the liquid to ensure exactly 2 liters. Reserve the pork belly. Skim off and save the chicken fat for later.
The Sauce: Mash the anchovies and mix them with all the sauce ingredients. Microwave for 1 minute and set aside.
The Oil: Crush the garlic cloves and chop them coarsely. Cook the garlic in the peanut oil, gradually increasing the heat for 5 minutes. Let the oil boil for 1 minute, then set it aside for 15 minutes. Strain the garlic oil.
The Toppings: Add 100 g water, 100 g soy sauce, and 2 tsp brown sugar to a skillet. Cook the pork belly in the sauce for 5 minutes on each side over medium heat. Glaze it with the reduced sauce at the end.
Place the bamboo shoots in boiling water, then discard the water. Cook the bamboo shoots in the remaining pork sauce in the skillet. Add a pinch of chili powder.
Cut the white part of the leek into 10 cm pieces. Split them lengthwise, remove the green core if necessary, and set the white part in the broth. Slice the white leek finely and soak it in cold water in the refrigerator during the soup’s cooking time.
Boil four large eggs (at room temperature) for 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Cool them immediately in ice water, peel, and marinate at room temperature during the soup preparation. Marinade: 70 g soy sauce, 130 g water (1/3–2/3 ratio), 4 tsp salt, 1 tsp brown sugar, and 5 turns of black pepper.
Chop the scallions finely. Cut the nori sheets into 10 x 5 cm pieces.
• Bowl assembly
Mix the broth with the sauce. For one bowl, combine 330 cc of broth with 2 tbsp garlic oil. Add the cooked noodles, and top with: Leek whites at the center, Two 1 cm-thick slices of pork belly, 8 pieces of bamboo shoots, Half a marinated egg, A piece of nori, A sprinkle of chopped scallion and a twist of black pepper.
Optional: Homemade Ramen Noodles Recipe (with ingredients available in France)
1.5 kg white bread flour
20 g sodium carbonate (heat 40 g baking soda at 150°C for 45 minutes to create sodium carbonate)
10 g fine salt
0.5 L cold water
Mix sodium carbonate and salt into the water. Cool the mixture to about 3°C. Combine the flour and water mixture to form fine granules. Use a rolling pin or pasta maker to create a smooth sheet of dough (~2 mm thick). Fold the dough over itself, roll again to 4 mm, and repeat once more to 5 mm, lightly flouring the dough each time. Rest the dough for 30 minutes under a damp cloth to prevent drying. Roll the dough thinner, reducing by one-third thickness each time, until slightly over 1 mm thick. Cut the dough into 30 cm noodles, slightly over 1 mm thick, portioned at 140 g per person. Boil the noodles in unsalted water for 1 minute.
Photo : Kodawari Ramen, DR.