I Bake For Attention: Pork Ramen

So, I did say that I had been travelling recently, and the first stop was TOKYO! It was amazing, and crazy, and unlike any holiday I have ever had. I would go back in a heartbeat, mainly for the food.

When I go on my holidays, I don’t tend to seek out haute cuisine or Michelin stars. I want to eat what the locals are eating, I want to hit up their versions of fast food, and greasy spoon cafes. And that is what we did in Tokyo. Sitting on a little stool at a bench, in front of a guy making whatever local thing I was getting was one of my absolute favourite memories of the holiday.

And my absolute favourite thing I had to eat there? RAMEN! And the best one I had, I am trying to recreate here. A smooth but dark and translucent broth, topped with scallions, an egg and a chunk of amazing pork belly.

So, there are a few schools of thought with ramen, there’s miso ramen and shoyu ramen, there’s a myriad of toppings, but always the noodles reign supreme. God forbid you overcook your noodles – many ramen places in Japan refuse to give ‘to go’ as the noodles may have overccoked in the broth by the time you get home.

Most of the ingredients and utensils are pretty standard in any supermarket or Asian food store. I easily found the soy sauce and sesame oil in Asda, and the mirin and ramen noodles were just as easily found in my local medium sized Chinese supermarket. I also found the little flat spoons there for sluuuurping the sauce, and they had chopsticks too (though I brought loads of them home from Tokyo). Including CHARMANDER ONES!

Other toppings can of course be used, including mushrooms, beansprouts, nori (seaweed), corn etc etc. I just used what I liked! And I like it very, very much.

Serves about 3

Ingredients for the broth

600g pork belly (I used slices as it was all they had)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp oil
1 onion, halved
1 leek, roughly chopped
3 scallions, white parts only
3 peeled garlic cloves
1 inch of ginger, roughly chopped
2 litres of cold water

To finish

2 tbsp Sake or Mirin (sweet sake)
4 tbsp Soy sauce
1 tsp Sesame oil

Toppings

1 boiled egg, halved
3 scallions, green parts, sliced finely
225g ramen noodles

Method

Begin by salting the pork belly, and setting aside.

Roughly chop the vegetables and add the onion, leek, scallions, garlic and ginger to a hot pan with the oil.

Fry for about 10 minutes until charred, then add the water.

Then add in the pork, and bring to a rolling boil.

At this point you can skim off any scum or foam from the top, but there shouldn’t be very much.

Then cover, and turn down the heat until you have a strong simmer.

Cook for an hour, then remove the pork if using slices, and continue to let boil for 30-60 more minutes. If using a whole pork belly then keep in for the 90-120 minutes cooking time.

Once the pork is done, place in the fridge for at least an hour. Allow the broth to cool. When cool, strain and discard the vegetables.

When the pork is chilled, remove from the fridge and cut into four (if using a whole pork belly) and fry in butter, fat side down, for 3 minutes.

Then transfer to the oven and let roast at 225 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until the skin is crisp. This will form a lovely topping for the dish.

Meanwhile, prep the rest of the toppings, boil the egg, and slice the greens.

Don’t do the noodles yet, cooked noodles wait for no man, so they get done at the very end, lest they overcook.

Bring the broth back to the boil and stir through the mirin, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Strained broth, before seasonings

After addition of mirin, soy sauce and sesame oil

When everything is ready, cook the noodles for the allotted time in boiling water.

As soon as they are done, assemble your soup – ramen in the bowl, pour the broth over and top with your desired toppngs. In this case, pork belly, scallions and half a fried egg. But go wild, choose whatever!