Various bowls I've worked on.

Here are a few bowls I've made over the last few months that I'm particularly proud of. Some have been written about more than others.

Good ol Tonkotsu at 18 hours

Tonkotsu miso

Gasp... A challenger approaches? What could this style of ramen be???

More to come on this final style later... but indeed, it is spicy, intense, and reminiscent of true Sapporo food.

Tantan men ingredients

This entry isn't really... for anyone except me? Maybe? I'd just like to share some findings on the tonkotsu tantanmen I made a few weeks ago.

Inventory for tan-tan-men assembly:

Tonkotsu broth (lower left). Bare. More chicken to help keep the flavor inline with most tantanmen style dishes. Yellow hue in fat comes from chicken. I imagine all pork legbone would still turn out well. (But where would the gelatin come from). No ingredients besides the following:
Proportions:

• 4.5 lbs pork leg bones
• 2 lbs chicken wings
• 2 lbs chicken feet

Blanched bok choy. (30 seconds blanch tops in boiling water)

Negi threads. Soak in water for 30 min after slicing. 

Tare: Soy (two types, white and usukuchi), tahini, a bit of rice wine vinegar. Extremely simple. Typically tantanmen uses a lighter chicken stock, so less is more here,

• I don't actually know if tare is the right word for this, but it seemed fitting, considering it's a flavor base. 
• Szechuan pickles are also pretty common in what I've found, but it's hard to spot. 
• Chinese black vinegar, also common. 

Chili lard: Used 1/4 cup lard, 1-2 tbs togarashi powder. Will steep for longer (color is more orange than desired).

• Not sure if lard is required, I just like it. Veg oil would work better for the visual. 

Noodles include 1 egg white for 500 g flour. Interesting translucency achieved that I couldn't get in other attempts. May be useful for thicker, more robust styles, but here it seemed off. Color got a little grey as these rested of the few days prior, something I've experienced before (and one of the reasons I avoid egg in these noodles). No dye. 

Not shown is the soboro which included "sweet black bean paste," a rather hard to find item. I believe a good, sweet miso could be substituted (many of the recipes I found suggested this item is the precursor to miso in history, and they're both made similarly)

Wondering how this would turn out with a lighter, more standard chicken broth... time will tell.

Makeshift Hakata Tonkotsu, yet another Tonkotsu Experiment!

Using some of the leftover Tonkotsu from last week, and a really simple shoyu tare made with mostly white soy sauce, I put together a pretty decent Tonkotsu forward bowl. Sorta Hakata style? I dunno, the toppings sure are.

Topped with pork belly chashu, plenty of green onion, some onion lard, 6:30 sec egg, some benishoga (red ginger), and sesame and pepper of all things! Just like the way those last two looked.

The homemade noodles this go around contain egg white as part of the liquid content. Some recipes suggested this improved their chew, but I don't think they're necessary for this thinner style. Maybe would work with a Sapporo noodle, one with more robust chew. Here, I'm going for a bite, something that sort of breaks against the teeth. That requires lower water content, less protein perhaps too.

Looking back, this could have definitely used more aroma oil. Maybe a full tablespoon next time.

I'm also noticing that the soup probably could have gone longer on the fire, or reduced more. You can see it has some translucency, which keeps bothering me. It went for 12 hours after bone blanch, and, although jelly in the fridge, was surprisingly loose. This is a really light soup for a Tonkotsu. Which isn't bad... Actually it's kind of nice, but the consistency isn't as rich as I was hoping. Still, the pork flavor is solid, and balanced well. And it's got good color. My tongue feels coated in collagen.

I still have a lot of practice to do on this style of soup, but things look promising. I might amp up the salinity of the tare, however.

Speaking of which...

Stupid easy shoyu tare:

50 ml sake

50 ml mirin

2 tbs brown sugar

400 ml soy sauce (of choosing)

150 ml dashi

Combine sake and mirin in a sauce pot, being to a boil to remove most of the alcohol. Add sugar, dissolve. Cut heat, add soy sauce, turn heat on and to medium, bring liquid to 178 degrees f. Add dashi. Chill. Done.

Perhaps a tablespoon of salt would help this out... It's pretty loose and not as salty as I'd like.

Now I have leftovers... What to do??

Tantan men, a ridiculous Tonkotsu Success

Having toyed with the idea since my last post, I decided to make a Tonkotsu Tan tan men this weekend. Using a tonkotsu base is pretty atypical to style apparently, most seem to be made with a light chicken broth, clouded with heaps of ground sesame and chili oil. But I figured I could both practice the tonkotsu method, and try a new style out. 

My god, it turned out so well.

Feast on that.

The key to success was really in this Tonkotsu method that I've been shamefully avoiding but ultimately knowing was the real deal. "It's too simple!" I said. "It doesn't have enough stuff in it" I said. "It's going to be gross!" I said.

I was wrong. Keep it simple but use proper technique.

It uses just pork and chicken parts. No additional items needed. Keeping it simple was really the way to go. The result was a pristine white, clean, not too heavy, but still nicely creamy, Tonkotsu broth. 

Look at that white pig water. Gorgeous.

Here's the ratios:

4 lbs pork leg bones, broken in half to expose yellow marrow

1.5 lbs chicken feet, blanched, toes and blemishes removed

2 lbs whole chicken wings. 

The pork bones need something to really reduce their overt funk, so the chicken provides balance and lightens the body. NO AROMATICS and a rapid boil (after blanching of course) for 12 hours results in a perfectly white broth, brimming with gelatin and fat. Virtually impossible to screw up.

Also it turns into white pork jelly. Dat gelatin content.  

A soy/sesame tare rounded things out. Typical to tantan men, it has ground sesame, but I deviated slightly by using white soy sauce and altering the amounts. Since the broth itself is pretty rich, I reduced the sesame paste levels and increased the other components. The resulting soup is surprisingly drinkable, but has a nice nuttiness and good complexity.

Some other recipes I came across included sake, Chinese black vinegar, and Szechuan pickles (an ingredient I am extremely unfamiliar with). All of these might be interesting additions in the future. But you can tell that the chinese influence is quite prevalent in this style of ramen. 

Noodles were 40% water, 1% added protein, 1% kansui, 1% salt. Tacky dough, but nice bite, less chew than Sapporo. Paired really well. These cook for about a minute. Overcooking is a little easy given the lower protein level. 

Homemade chili oil was dead simple and could have steeped longer. Making aroma oil of your choice, then adding in a heap of ground korean togarashi powder results in some lightly spiced, tasty chili oil. Looking for darker color next time, which would come from longer steeping. Blood red type color.

Soboro (the ground pork) has sweet bean paste in it (called tenmenjan in Japanese, a cousin of miso). Cook ground pork until no longer pink and water evaporates, add ginger, garlic and sweat. Then the tenmenjan and perhaps some sake. Boom, done. Sweet salty goodness. Consider using hoisin or oyster sauce instead in a pinch. Maybe even a really dark miso. Lot of flexibility in this. It's delicious though. 

Other toppings were pork belly, half cooked egg, blanched bokchoy, and some green onion threads. Really nice overall. Very pleased with this go around.

I even had some the next day! 

What style should I attempt next?? With a solid Tonkotsu finally in my grasp, I'm quite curious. 

What exactly IS tantan men?

I have tantan men on the brain. But I've run into sort of a snag in my development of the method.

Usually a particular style of ramen has a certain distinct characteristic in the soup. Shoyu ramen has soy sauce, and is brown tinged. Tonkotsu is creamy and white. Even regional styles often have a distinguishing piece, if nuanced.

But tantan men... I have almost no idea. I know it's based on dan dan noodles, a spicy Sichuan noodle dish with sesame and chili oil. Sometimes the dish is without broth, sometimes not. In china it often includes pickled vegetables of some kind, though this isn't entirely the case in Japan. There, the vegetable of choice is usually bokchoy or cabbage. A "soboro" style ground pork is also pretty typical.

So as far as toppings and aroma oil, we're in the clear. Sesame chili oil, soboro, bokchoy. Easy.

But as a dish, since it isn't inherently tied to the base broth like other styles, tantan men is much harder to nail down. Do you go with a fish stock? Do you go chicken forward? Double soup! Tonkotsu? (If Tonkotsu, shouldn't it be fairly light to not be overwhelmed by the fat from the sesame?)

And what about the noodles? Those can change dramatically depending on the richness of the broth.

Is there even a "tare" in the typical sense? I've seen a few recipes that use ground sesame and xo sauce, but that's a wash too!

I'm going to play with it this weekend I think... If it turns out like garbage, at least I tried?

Somehow, the most freedom in the style makes it even more cumbersome. 

Ramen Party Tidbit

Whenever I make ramen, I make sure to invite friends over for a ramen party. (cooking ramen takes all day, might as well make an event out of it!)

I've found that expediting loads of ramen bowls at once is challenging in a home kitchen. Especially when plating needs to happen. Sometimes I'll have 6 people over, and they should all get ramen at the same time. This is particularly challenging in my kitchen, where I can only cook two orders of noodles at a time. This is my usual setup:

Noodle baskets and all, that's the most I can cook.

This means I can really only do two orders at the same time. If noodles and broth take 2 minutes a bowl to cook, that's an extra 4 minutes of noodles getting soggy. This is further impacted by having to plate. It's tough to top, set up new bowls, and cook noodles all at once.

So I've come up with a few strategies that mitigate this.

1. Add tare to as many bowls in advance as possible. 
2. Add your stock to all bowls if possible.
3. Cook and drain noodles quickly, and send the now filled bowls to the table. 
4. Allow your guests to top the bowls themselves. Preslice your chashu, eggs, and other toppings, and bring everything out on a platter or containers to let guests pick what they want. This saves a ton of time and your guests can pick how much they like.  

The result is nice! When I did this last week we found that the guests liked topping the dishes themselves. Some wanted two eggs. Some wanted none, some wanted just one slice of pork. Here's a photo of the madness. 

Classic Miso... topped with pork belly, green onion strips, beansprouts, and a half cooked egg in the back.

By the time the first people are done topping, the remaining bowls should be out and ready for the guests. 

It also means I don't have to yell at people to eat while it's hot, haha. 

Will definitely be doing this in the future.

Fun little tidbit I think. Love when things turn out successfully. 

Some photos of "Hakata Miso"

I mentioned this in the last blog post, but a recent tonkotsu attempt ended poorly. I attempted to revive it with a miso base that I've had a lot of success with in the past. It combines sharp, raw ingredients with subtle, caremelized onions. The best of both worlds really.

The initial goal of this bowl was simple: I wanted to replicate Hakata Style Tonkotsu.

This style of ramen is designated by the following main characteristics:

1. A pork forward tonkotsu broth. Rich, creamy, decadent. Sometimes funky. Usually uses pork femur bones, but can also use neck bones, skulls, or trotters. 
2. Low to little additional seasoning beyond salt. Sometimes tare is used, but not always.
3. Taut, wire thin, low alkalinity noodles. Often cooked for just a few seconds. Firmness level can often be requested at the shop. 
4. Sparse toppings. Lots of green onion or welsh onion, maybe some chashu, that's about it. Woodear mushrooms or menma are occasionally included, to provide extra texture, but these are hardly required

But because the broth is so critical to the style, I wanted to really nail down that aspect. Without that in line, I had to resort to some alterations. But here are some photos on how it turned out!

Green Onion, always a staple. The thinner the better I think!

The chashu is seared and then braised in soy, mirin, sake. I've had some incredible success with the quality of the pork belly at my local grocery. Buying high quality ingredients really impacts the dish.

The eggs are standard for me. Boil 6 minutes, 30 seconds. Perfect every time. 

This is the base soup with the tare added. It's quite rich looking, really opaque. Good fat floating on the top too, mostly from the fatback, which didn't fully emulsify into the broth by service. But I'm actually ok with that!

Here are the "Hakata" style noodles. It's in quotes because the recipe deviates pretty generously from style, with far more water content added to these than typical. 

Ah... Hakata noodles. How you tempt me. But the truth is, I will never be able to do you justice in my kitchen. 

Hakata ramen noodles are some of the driest, firmest, most difficult to work with noodles I have come across. Much of this is attributed to the water content (about 22-26g water per 100g flour). This is an absurdly small amount of water, and it's impossible to press this dough together at home. Industrial manufacturers have vacuum technology and incredibly robust rollers that can sheet this dough out, but us home cooks don't. 

So my makeshift version bumps the water content up to 36%, which is still extremely difficult to work with, but manageable if you have an electric pasta machine, patience, and a desire for noodle glory. The result is taught, but still sort of springy, noodles. I also reduced the gluten to about 13% protein by weight (since additional protein makes doughs more thirsty), and reduced the alkaline addition to about 1g per 100g flour. 1g kansui per 100g flour is pretty standard as is, and this also helps keep the flavor more neutral (wheras a Sapporo noodle is much more distinctly minerally). 

Back to photos:

A touch of Beni-shoga (pickled red ginger), which is another typical Hakata topping, and we're good to go!

The composed bowl. "Hakata" Style Miso-Tonkotsu!

That covers all of it! I think I'm going to keep pressing on with my miso endevors... but perhaps I'll revist Tonkotsu soon enough. 

Tonkotsu Failure

Tonkotsu has reached critical mass in the US. It's a default broth that virtually everyone slightly interested in ramen is attempting to emulate, be it chefs or even home cooks.

I've been in the process of fleshing out my tonkotsu method a bit. Digging into the available information more has revealed some interesting tidbits of knowledge.

In the past, I've had moderate to poor success with tonkotsu, and frankly, I wasn't sure why. It seems straightforward enough. Virtually every method I have ever seen uses the same process:

1. Blanch a bunch of pork femur bones, to remove the funk/blood.
2. Replace with fresh water. Scrub the black stuff away. Scrub all the things.  
3. Cook at rolling boil until unctuous and creamy. About 10-12 hours minimum. 

There are , of course, variations on this technique, notably the addition of other ingredients, such as aromatics or chicken parts. Usually these are thrown in at the start of the second boil. Some folks in Hakata use pig skulls in addition to femurs. Apparently the brain adds some flavor? (they call the brain "脳みそ" or "brain miso" lol)

But I've found that the less I add to the broth, the whiter it turns out. Allow me to present an example:

Look at that glorious pig water

This boil had nothing but pork leg bones and feet. Aromatics were added at the last hour. It's a gorgeous, slightly beige, cream colored broth. (It was way too rich... but that's a story for a different time). 

Sadly, in my last attempt, things didn't go so smoothly. 

For Memorial Day, I attempted to do some serious Hakata tonkotsu (separate blurb on the noodles is incoming, but the TL;DR is that they're impossible to do at home). Started with soaking the bones overnight, followed by a good ol blanch. The blanch goes through a few stages.

Stage 1: Brown water. Yuck.

If you don't blanch, you'll never get rid of that horrid brown color. 

Stage 2: Scrum rising.

Oh sweet jesus what is happening?

Stage 3: Gunk lightening, foam appaears.

Ok... I see where this is going.

Stage 4: Little to no foam left. 

At this stage, you'll want to dump the water, scrub the pot if reusing it, and scrub the bones of any leftover black gunk. This includes red marrow, which may be hiding in there. 

So far, things were par for the course. 

Then we moved onto the main part of cooking this bad boy. And this is where things started to turn for the worse. I started to deviate!

I was feeling bold, so as per the instructions of a few recipes I've found online (such as oisiso, a great Japanese guide), I threw an apple, a whole onion, some garlic cloves, and a knob of ginger, into the boil. 

I've found in the past that non-white items, like carrot, green onion, leek, etc, can actually impart color to the broth, so I avoided those. But they're not a bad idea if you like those flavors. 

Additionally, I added fatback. Chopped up by my local butcher, ready for the cookin'.

I had added most of it to the boil before this picture...

Fatback was suggested to amp up the richness of the broth in several of the sources I came across. Makes sense; the amount of fat present in the bones isn't enough (bones are pretty fat free apart from the marrow) so we add more to improve the consistency. Fatback is essentially collagen and fat, so it's the obvious choice. 

But then things started cooking.

Ok... so far so good... let's get rockin.

About two hours later:

Sweet. Starting to look opaque!

 At around 5-7 hours in is where I began to notice that the color was off...

And at 5:30 or so, the jig was up. I had brown tonkotsu.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Additionally, this version was insanely meaty. In perhaps an off putting way. Not really how I wanted the tonkotsu to turn out, to be frank.

So what are the learnings from this process?

Doing some investigating has lead me to three conclusions that may help improve the broth:

1. The use of fatback or any meat products should be used sparingly. 
• While fatback is awesome, it DOES have a slight meaty flavor to it, which eventually transitions to the broth. Making sure that the bones are cleaned of extra meat, and that the fatback is used just enough to provide richness (about 1/10th the weight of the bones total) is the way to go.
2. Keeping the pot covered results in an easier boil, yes, but it also creates pressure which can push the particulate suspended in the liquid downward, which may cause the broth to effectively to caramelize on the bottom of the pot. Uncovered or largely vented is the way to go here, and it's why most tonkotsu shops cook with an open lid.
3. Apples are the devil. The skins have way too much color and they oxidize during the boil into a brown mess. Most tonkotsu shops avoid aromatics. I was a fool to try and add them.

I was able to salvage this hakata attempt with some solid miso tare, but that's sort of a cop out. Any broth you make should be delicious; using a tare to mask flavors is a crutch.

It did look pretty though

Ultra rich and meaty... too much so.

"Hakata" style noodles. Not usually done in miso, but the pairing was nice.

Live and learn I suppose. Onto the next round of ramen.

A Brief History of my First Ramen Attempts

While currently, I've made some, frankly, awesome bowls of noodles, it wasn't always that way.

No no, the first few ramen bowls I made were insanely terrible. Awful.

Like a slap in the face to what "ramen" is.

So, being the smart man I am, I figure it'd be cool to start the blog off by discussing those dishes in detail. I'll essentially gloss over:

• Why they sucked.
• What I did wrong.
• What I learned from those experiences.

Ugh... here we go.

The first bowl I ever made was a "Tonkotsu" broth with homemade noodles. 

At the time of its inception, I didn't even understand why Tonkotsu worked, or what it necessarily meant, or what ingredients were required to make the dish. I just knew it was white, had pig bones, and was delicious. 

At first, I thought I was on the right track. I had done some initial research and discovered that tonkotsu required a high heat boil to get creamy white. I threw some pig trotters into water with chicken, carrots, onions, and let them cook at rapid boil. 

So when this showed up after 8 hours of simmering, I thought I was golden:

I mean, it was opaque, and whiteish. That worked for me! It was a little orange, but I hardly knew better. 

I also made noodles... they looked cool but... oh dear the shame. 

Without the right protein and gluten content, and with far too much water in the dough, these noodles were soggy, and horrible tasting. 

But hey! In my euphoria of first attempts, who cared?! This was ramen made at home. That was pretty sweet.

In my haste and utter lack of knowledge, I threw on a bit of seared chicken, some far-too-thickly cut green onions, and canned bamboo shoots. No seasoning beyond salt in the broth. Here it is... my first homemade bowl of ramen:

Later on in the week, I made another bowl using the same tonkotsu base, but topped it with pork, onions, and an egregiously overcooked egg.

Now, some of you might think that these bowls of noodles look pretty good! And, honestly, they're not too bad! But they paled in comparison to what I had experienced in Japan. The bowl above was ultra heavy, insanely rich, not nearly complex enough, with very little depth. I knew if I were to satisfy any sort of craving, I'd have to do better. 

As I continued my research, things started to improve. I began looking back to what I had learned in my experiences in Sapporo, like how they used aromatic lard infused with ginger and garlic, and how they used miso and sesame to add richness and complexity. I also decided to start focusing my efforts on Miso ramen, my favorite style.

But... even then, it was kinda sad:

I didn't even use matching chopsticks.... gahhhh.

Noodles continued to haunt me too, as I was unaware of the affects of things like alkalinity, flour ash, water content, dough fermentation, and cooking times. They just never turned out right. They were like pasta...

I gave up on making noodles for a while, opting to buy noodles from Sun Noodle instead. They make a killer product, but there's something alluring about making everything at home. But things were starting to look up!

The truth is, it took several years before I felt like I had any clue what I was doing. Ramen is far more complex than it leads on to be. I like to imagine that these days, my bowls have improved dramatically from my humble origins, but there is always room for improvement. Here are a few recent creations, for comparison's sake: 

Old School Tokyo Shoyu, with chashu pork, spinach, egg, nori, and menma 

Chicken/Dashi Shio Ramen, with menma, egg, nori, green onion, and chicken chashu

 Sapporo Miso, my love.

But things continue to improve, and I continue to learn. That's what this blog is for! To share my growth as a lover of ramen, a lover of cooking, with you. 

The quest continues. 

An Introduction

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my ramen journal.

So... why does this blog exist?

I'm ridiculously obsessed with ramen. After living in Sapporo for a year, I found myself attempting to recreate the dish at home back in the US. Without places to readily buy ramen, it was really my only option. My first attempts were... incredibly embarrassing. Horrible pork concoctions. Gross noodles. Sad toppings. Compounded by the lack of information readily available, it took a while to get to a point where I felt confident in my skills as a ramen cook. But there's always more to learn.

In the past, I've posted under the username "Ramen_Lord" on the /r/ramen subreddit. I like to think that my posts there are well received. But I've quickly realized that posting there may not be the right approach for all of the information I want to share, or for the poorly executed experiments I come up with. Creating a journal of sorts to log my successes, and failures, seems appropriate.

This website serves as a log for my homemade ramen experiments and findings. New techniques, new results, new research, will be recorded here. I hope, in this process, that viewers may learn about ramen, as more than just noodles in soup from Japan. Perhaps it will give people the courage to try making it at home.

I also hope to tackle the astounding amount of misinformation in the US regarding this dish. There still seems to be an lack of quality information online in English, and so much of my research has been through scholarly articles and Japanese websites (thankfully my Japanese skill is passable!). Some posts may be dedicated to these types of topics.

But it will all be ramen. So please join me on my never ending quest for ramen glory.

Welcome to the Ramen Journal.