Chicken Ramen

You mean, you *don't* match your bowl and chopsticks? Casual.

What to do the day after nomming a massive roast dinner into you? Get those chicken bones in a pot and make some stock, and use it the next day to make yummy chicken ramen soup! No? Just me?

Well, that is what I did and it was spectacular.  Full disclosure, the stock could have been better, I added a bit of water to the broth when cooking and I think that took away from the depth of flavour a bit. So don't do that. See, I'm making the mistakes so you guys don't have to!

You all know, I love ramen. I could very happily live in one of those little noodle shops in Japan and never leave it. Pork ramen is classic and delicious and I love it a lot. Chicken ramen is something I hadn’t considered until I was staring at my picked-clean chicken bones/leftovers.

This is a little bit lighter than the pork, and I think it handles itself a little better with unconventional flavours, like the jalapeno toppings. Any of your favourite veggies really will do here, it is one of those special soups which is infinitely customizable.

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