You probably know me for trying other people's recipes, but I can cook too! It's hard for a white girl from Haitian descendant to cook Vietnamese food the first times without a recipe. You can't reproduce what you've never eaten. After one year of eating packaged noodles and cheap restaurant every day in our first common apartment, I knew I had to start cooking more. We used to live in a tiny studio apartment Downtown, with crackheads in the entrance at all hours of the day/night. I could mostly only cook easy québécois food and French salads and sandwiches (it was my job at a French Café-Bakery-Chocolatier). So we decided to move in a 3 1/2 cheaper and bigger apartment since it was away from Downtown. I'm really good at reusing furnitures and making up with what we have, my kitchen is like a giant colourful lab, all equipped for Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Thai cooking.
So back to the "I'm gonna start cooking" decision. I'm not sure exactly how it started. I think I wanted to make onigiri then I started watching Cooking with Dog on YouTube. After that, I was obsessed that when I have a little spare money, I would buy a Japanese cookbook. And I did, it was a book from the French-Japanese Laure Kié called "La cuisine japonaise : les bases". Later on I also bought the other books of that serie, one about noodles and the other about izakaya. I got Momofuku's book. I started hanging out at the Korean-Japanese grocery stores and I even found a Japanese (expensive) grocery store where I could find specialized Japanese ingredients and fermentation products (Koji, Nuka bran). I cooked only Japanese and nothing else for about two years!
One of our first dates, my boyfriend brought me to Sumo Ramen, a small really hip Japanese place in Montreal's 4x4 blocks tiny Chinatown. It was my first time having non-packaged ramen, which should be considered a totally different food. After cooking Japanese for some time, I remembered this delicious miso-ramen I had and decided to make my own. Of course, that first ramen I had at Sumo Ramen stayed on my mind, and the garnishes are a reflection of it. After exploring different recipes and topping, I don't need a recipe anymore. So here I give you a guide for homemade ramen, with different broths, seasoning, noodles, eggs, garnishes and main toppings (protein) so your can choose and compose your own ramen!
HOW TO COOK A RAMEN:------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's how you assemble a ramen. I'll give instructions for the preparations of the different elements in details following this.
(serves 2)
-4 cups of broth
-ginger and/or garlic
-veggies (I usually use carrot strips, shredded cabbage and bean sprouts)
-shoyu or usu-Kuchi shoyu or soy sauce
-mirin
-toasted sesame oil
-optional: miso, if you're making miso-ramen
-2 portions of noodles
-protein topping(see later)
-garnishes (see garnishes later)
-2 eggs (precision later in this article)
Boil the noodles until cooked, then rinse under cold water.
In a non-stick high pan, wok or big pot, add a little oil on medium high. Cook your ginger and/or garlic a minute, then add your veggies. Cook and toss until wilted. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Season (to your taste or the quantities are there later in the seasonings section) with soy sauce and mirin. Reduce the heat to low and dissolve the miso through a small strainer if using. Then just remove from the stove and add sesame oil, mix.
To assemble, put the noodles at the bottom of two big soup bowls. Add the soup, top with your protein, garnishes and egg.
THE BROTH:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ramen restaurants have that reputation of putting a lot of love and time and passion into their ramen broth. The best ramen broth I tried was David Chang's in his Momofuku book. The problem with that broth is that you HAVE to make a lot, otherwise it's not worth it. Also, it's really expensive since on top of the usual veggies, kombu seaweed and dried mushrooms, he uses a ton of pork bones, and bacon, AND A WHOLE CHICKEN. It's starting to be expensive... When I think ramen, I think of a cheap filling meal. Also it's summer so we're not gonna eat soup everyday, and we're just two so I like to make small amounts of broth. You have three options now: bones (pork bones being the most authentic traditional one), or I guess you could use dashi, or if you have unseasoned broth in your fridge or freezer, it would probably work. So you can make your own broth, but if you don't know how, here's how I do my broths.
PORK BROTH:
-Pork bones
-a piece of kombu seaweed
-a couple dried shiitake mushrooms
-vegetables for flavour, I suggest using some of these commonly used in Japanese cooking ingredients: leek, green onions, onions, carrots, ginger (if the broth isn't for ramen, I'd add lemongrass)
-plenty of water
In a big pot, cover the bones with water, bring to a vigorous boil, then drain and rinse the bones well. This reduces the amount of scum to skim afterwards a lot, plus if your bones were frozen, no problem!
Put the washed bones back into the cleaned pot and cover with water, maybe an inch or two over the bones. Bring to a boil, then remove from the stove, add the kombu and dried mushrooms and let it steep for 30 minutes. Remove only the kombu and bring the broth back to a boil, then reduce heat and let is simmer from 2-6 hours, the more the better. The 45 last minutes, add all your veggies. Strain and discard everything, then strain again through a fine mesh strainer for a perfect broth!
DASHI:
Dashi is a really quick broth/condiment that is in almost every Japanese food. Using it for ramen would make it really unauthentic, but still lend a Japanese taste. The soup would also be lighter. But it is perfect for vegetarians and this is home style ramen so who cares? Experiment!
-4 cups water
-a piece of kombu
-one handful of katsuobushi (if you eat fish, they're flakes of whole dried smoke fermented bonito fish) AND/OR a couple dried shiitake if you're vegetarian
Combine all ingredients in a medium pot. Cover and let steep at room temperature for a minimum of 2 hours to maybe 6 hours.
Put the pot on the stove and warm up slowly. Before it boils, remove from the stove and strain through a fine mesh strainer. Discard everything. The before boiling temperature is perfect for the kombu and katsuobushi to release their flavour, and the broth should stay clear too if you don't boil it!
ANY BROTH:
Any broth, like leftover pork or chicken broth, preferably unseasoned so we can season it with Japanese ingredients for that Japanese taste, but you can also experiement!
THE BROTH'S SEASONINGS:---------------------------------------------------------------------
For two people, I use 4 cups of broth. Here is how I season it! Each ingredient has its best moment to be added, so please follow the "how to cook a ramen" section at the beginning of this post!
-1tbsp mirin
-1tbsp miso
-1/2tbsp soy sauce
-a splash of sesame oil or to taste
This will make a slightly misoed soup. If you add more miso, you'll probably need less or none of the soy sauce. Adjust to taste. Mirin is a little sweet, miso and shoyu are salty. Sesame oil is nutty. Your best friend is your tastebuds!
NOODLES:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ramen are generally served with fresh ramen noodles (find them at the Asian market) or sometimes udon. I also tried homemade pasta (my post on homemade pasta/egg noodles here: http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/2014/04/homemade-egg-noodlespastas-basics.html), thin dried Chinese egg noodles, Korean udon and black rice noodle. It might not be a traditional ramen but please make this your own and try different noodles!
GARNISHES:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inspired by Sumo Ramen, here are the garnishes I can't skip on my ramen! They're all replaceable or optional.
-sesame seeds
-fresh or canned corn kernels
-nori seaweed, a piece or in thin strips
-enoki mushrooms, sometimes I put shimeji too
-sliced green onions
-an egg, precisions following
You could also use any kind of blanched greens, I've seen that before. If you're doing a modern-experiemental dish, throw some eggplants (gross!) or something, the ramen is your canvas!
THE EGG:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The egg is a REALLY important element of the ramen. The usual is a hard-boiled egg cut into 2. You could also top the ramen with a sunny side-up fried egg, why not? You could use a poached egg (I'm not really good at making them), or like me, an Onsen Tamago or hot spring slow poached egg. I tried so many different instructions for Onsen Tamago and even though on the pictures and in the videos it works, it never worked for me, until I found David Chang's tips and I make the perfect Onsen Tamago every time! You can also top asparagus and donburi with these eggs. They're like a poached egg, with the yolk all runny.
Onsen Tamago:
-as many eggs as you want. They'll keep in their shell in the fridge for a day of two.
-a big pot
-little sauce plates, one for each egg to rest on, they must not touch the bottom of the pot
-a thermometer
In the big pot while carefully monitoring the temperate, bring plenty of water to 140F. Drop the sauce plates at the bottom and with tongs place an egg on each plate. Put a timer for 40 minutes and check on your thermometer often to make sure the temperature stays as close to 140F the whole cooking time. After 40 minutes, transfer the eggs to a bowl of water and ice or under running cold water. Keep in the fridge. When ready to use, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for one minute, then crack open on top of your ramen or other dish.
DIFFERENT MAIN TOPPINGS:---------------------------------------------------------------------
You can use anything you want, here are some of my favorite!:
-Kanikuni (fake crab sticks) pulled appart
-Slices of Chinese BBQ pork
-gyoza or dumplings
-shrimps
-a teriyaki chicken leg, sliced in a couple pieces. (Teriyaki marinade: 2/3cup mirin, 1/3cup shoyu, 2tbsp saké, 2tbsp sugar, some ginger juice, without the pulp)
For volcano ramen like on the picture under, I used this recipe from JustBento/Just hungry for Soboro meat and modified it to make spicy meat, it tastes soooo Japanese! Even though exceptionally I'm almost copying her recipe here, please go see the recipe on her website for a bunch of suggestions on how to use Soboro meat, here: http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/basic-meat-soboro
Volcano meat:
-1lb ground beef
-1 to 2tbsp sesame oil
-2 stalks finely chopped green onions
-1 chopped garlic clove
-2tbsp chopped ginger
-2tbsp sugar
-2tbsp saké
-3tbsp oyster sauce
-1tbsp soy sauce
-3tbsp gochujang (korean fermented chili paste)
To a pan, add sesame oil and stir-fry all the veggies until softened. Add the meat until well cooked.
Add the sugar until melted.
Add saké and stir for a minute to evaporate.
Add everything else and let it cook until most of the sauce is absorbed, mixing frequently.
CONCLUSION:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home style ramen can be made any way. If you read all this article, I hope your learnt something and might try it someday. Please send me images if you do, either here on the blog or on my Facebook page, Sunny García. Have fun!
