(6 Servings)
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 2 days (includes cooking time for the broth)
On a cold winter day you sometimes yearn for a hearty soup. For me this year it was a ramen craving! I have always had ramen at small ramen shops in NYC and after watching the documentary Ramen Heads on a flight from LA to NYC I was inspired to make my own ramen broth. Don’t be disheartened by the time I spent to make this broth. You can easily spend a quarter of the time but I just wanted to experiment and get the deepest flavor! But if you do try what I did you will see that it doesn’t really need a lot of monitoring. You can let the ingredients simmer and work their magic while you go about your normal day. I even switched off the flame and restarted a few times when I wanted to step out of the apartment for daily chores.
Ingredients
For the broth:
- Knuckle bones 2 pound
- 1 Cup bonnito flakes
- 12 cups water
- 1/4 cup Mirin
- 1/4 cup sake
- 5-6 large flakes garlic
- 4 inch fresh ginger
- 1 shallot
- 1 leek
- 2 sheets dried kelp
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- Salt to taste
Marinade for pork belly
- 1 & 1/2 pound Pork belly packed tight
- 2 tablespoon Soy Soave
- 2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoon Black bean paste
- 3 no star anise
- 3 no black peppercorn
- 2 tablespoon honey
- 1/4 cup water
Other ingredients
- Bamboo shoots
- Bean sprouts
- Corn
- Nori
- Enoki mushrooms
- Shitake mushrooms
- Water chestnuts
- Cilantro
- Egg
Method
Marinate the pork belly with honey, soy, Worcestershire sauce, black been paste, star anise and peppercorns. Set aside for at least one hour. The key to the pork belly or chashu is to ask your local butcher to pack it tight and tie. This keeps the pork moist when cooked and sliced.
For the broth
In a large vessel add a little sesame oil and stir fry the shallot, leek (white part) ginger and garlic for about 2 minutes. Now add in he assorted bones and fry for another 5 minutes. Add in the water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 24 hours. (I spread the cooking time over 2 days so I didn’t have to cook the broth overnight) stir occasionally, but it really needs very little monitoring. You can adjust water as desired based on your desire. Strain the broth and remove all
Bones and meat. Now add in the dried kelp and keep off the flame for an hour. Restart the heat and when the broth is just about to get to boiling remove the kelp. This prevents the bitterness of the kelp to get into the broth.
Now add in the bonito flakes and simmer for another hour and strain. Add in the soy, mirin, sake and adjust for salt. The broth is ready!
For the pork belly
Place the marinated pork belly in a pressure cooker (this method is quick) and cook for 8 whistles with a little water. Then reduce flame and keep on for 20 minutes more. Take out the pork belly, remove the thread tied to hold he belly and set aside. The remaining sauce left in the pressure cooker continue to boil on a high flame and reduce to a thick sauce ( about 10 minutes).
Place the pork belly on a wooden board and with a blow torch, torch the outer sides to give a dark char. Then thinly slice. While the pork belly cooks the other ingredients for the ramen such as the noodles, mushrooms and eggs can be prepped.
In a bowl place the noodles, top with ingredients of your choice and the pork slices. Pour in the bone broth and about 2-3 tablespoons of the reduced leftover sauce from the pork belly and serve.
Tip – you can also save some of the beef meat used to make the broth and serve with the ramen. I served it with a few drops of truffle oil and it was just delectable!
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