Ever since sitting down in a traditional ramen restaurant in Tokyo with my family it has become one of our favourite dishes. The rich and nutritious soup is typically made from pork broth, but could also be from chicken or fish.
So here is my attempt.. (which scored a 9/10 from my kids which is all that matters right! )
Find Pork bones for sale here.
Ramen Noodles
A simple recipe for Pork soup ramen noodles
Equipment
- Large Pot
Ingredients
- 1 kg Pork bones
- 4 Eggs, soft boiled
- 1 carrot - neatly sliced or grated
- 2 handfuls Spinach or other leafy greens
- 4-5 Mushrooms - sliced or chopped
- 2-3 packets Ramen Noodles
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- green onion or chives - finely chopped
- salt and pepper - to taste
Instructions
Pork Bone Broth
- 1kg of pork bones makes 1-2 litre of broth
- Rinse bones with boiling water to remove residue of blood and bone sawdust. This gives a cleaner looking broth
- Fill pot to cover bones and add 1-2Tbsp vinegar (I like to use apple cider vinegar). This helps to pull out all the goodies from the bones into your broth.
- Boil on a very low heat, or in a slow cooker, for at least the whole day. Perhaps even 2 days if you can. (using a pressure cooker will speed up the process).
- When you think it's ready, or you want to use the broth, decant it off from the bones into another pot, or an Agee jar and when cool, refrigerate. With the fat layer on top, this broth will last for weeks in the fridge. Bring it out and make a delicious and nutritious soup within minutes.
- You can also separately save the meat that will by now have fallen off the bones and will be very soft. Add this to the soup when preparing.
Ramen Soup
- Put 4 cups of bone broth (previously prepared) in a saucepan and heat
- Chop the mushrooms and toss into the broth. Boil for 3-4 minutes
- Add the noodles
- Add the leafy greens and simmer for 1-2 minutes (check time required on noodle packet)
- Season with salt, pepper, and soy sauce
- Arrange noodles, greens, mushrooms, egg halves, carrot, and pork meat in bowls then garnish with green onion.
Notes
The fun part is arranging the Ramen in a bowl. In my family, soup was normally just slopped into a bowl. In Japanese culture, Presentation is very much part of the deal. I became more aware of this recently when a Japanese friend stayed here on the farm.
So… Start by choosing your bowls, and place the noodles first. Then pour soup broth in, holding back the mushrooms and greens. Next arrange the greens, mushrooms, egg halves, finely chopped or grated carrot, and soft pork meat on the top of the noodles, semi floating in the soup. Just add enough of each ingredient so that it does not get too crowded… Finally garnish with green onion and you are ready to present!