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.