Ramen Tonkatsu Broth with Soy Egg and Charsiew

Hubby had been sort of asking for Ramen for a while and since it is winter, I guess this is a must cook dish. So bought some ingredients and start doing it... extra can be stored to be used for other cooking.

 Ingredients for stock:

• 1+kg chicken carcass
• bout one big take away box of prawn shell (air fried min 10mins on 200c or fry it till crispy and smells good)
• a small piece of gula melaka, 
• a big handful of peppercorn
• one carrot
• pork hock (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 4pcs bone marrow (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 6 chicken feet (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 1 roasted leek
• 1 roasted big onion
• a big handful of dried big anchovies, roasted
• water to cover the pot, roughly 2l
• salt to season to your preference

Steps:

Place all ingredients in the pot and set it to boil for 6-8hrs. Or use the pressure cooker to cook for 2-3hrs.

Note: my pressure cooker can't fit in all the ingredients in one go, so what I did was split it to half, pressure cook half the time then remove the ingredients, place the other half and pressure cook another half the time.

Next the charsiew.
Ingredients:

• 1 slab of pork belly (roughly 800g-1kg)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sake
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 2tbsp sugar
• few slices of ginger
• 1tbsp minced garlic
• few pieces of spring onion white
• string to tie to the pork belly

Steps:

1. Measure roughly 3x the length of the pork. Roll the pork belly up and place the string underneath the belly. Start with the middle of the string at the very end of the belly, inter twine the string and roll tie it upwards, try to tie it as tight as possible as the pork belly will shrink after cooking and you want it to hold on to the round shape. 
2. Prepared some hot boiling water and blanched the belly all sides.
3. Then place all ingredients in the pot. If using pressure cooker, cook for 30mins. If normal pot, cook it for 2-3hrs till tender soft. Try to turn the pork around to absorb the sauce if the pork is not fully submerged in the sauce.
4. Once done, remove and cool it so that it is easier to slice.

Soy Egg:
Ingredients:

1. Eggs
2. Water
3. Soy mixture from the charsiew

Steps:

1. Place eggs in cold water, bring it to a boil and cook (entire process takes 4.5 mins for gooey yolk, 5mins for moist yolk, 5.5 mins for just cooked yolk - this is for winter time... during summer, reduce time by 30seconds).
2. Remove the eggs from the boiling water and run it over cold water.
3. Remove shell, soak the eggs in the soy sauce mixture for min 30mins, the longer the better it absorbs the color and taste to the eggs.

Once done, assemble the noodle, charsiew, egg with the other condiments such as spring onion, seaweed, ginger slice, bamboo shoots, etc.

Home made Ramen with Tonkatsu Broth

My demanding husband had requested that I prepared the nice tonkatsu ramen and after shopping for all the ingredients, finally, managed to do that.

For the broth (do note it takes a long time to prepared).

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of pork trotters (the one with more bones, less meat, cut to small pieces)
• 1 chicken carcass
• 1 big onion, cut to half, lightly roast in the air fryer (I put it for 5mins, 200C)
• 2 spring onion, cut to half
• 1 pc of ginger, roughly 1 inch
• 4 bulbs of garlic, skin removed
• 5 litres of water

Steps:

1. Put the trotters and carcass in the pot along with 2 litres of the water.  Leave it to boil.
2. Then drain and wash the trotters and carcass. Scrap the skin and bones off those scum.
3. Then put all the balance ingredients plus the trotters and carcass in another clean pot and boil.
4. Next there are two options. You can lower down the fire and boil for 10hours. Second option, use the thermal pot. Once the water boil, leave it to boil another 20mins on low fire and move it into the thermal pot. Repeat the boil for 30mins 8hrs later and do this for 3days.
5. By the fourth day, it should be ready. If you have heavier taste bud, season with some soy sauce, otherwise, you may served it this way.

The noodle:

Ingredients:

• 400g bread flour
• 180ml water

Steps:

1. Pour the flour into the noodle maker.
2. Start the machine and add in the water.
3. Boil some salted water with oil and cook the noodle.
4. Can served with eggs, corn, endamame, flower fish cake, seaweed strips, carrot, charsiew, spring onion, etc

Home Made Ramen

I love ramen and so does the little girl. Since this week, I managed to get the chicken carcass and pork bones, we are cooking ramen today.

For the broth:
Ingredients:

• 2 chicken carcass, roughly 300g
• 1 pork ham leg, roughly 800g
• 3 tablespoon of salt
• 1 onion, cut to 4wedges
• 6pcs of garlic, smashed with skin intact
• a pinch of crushed pepper
• 8 slices of ginger
• 1.5l water

Methods:

Washed the chicken carcass with salt (scrub) and hot water. Rinse the pork leg with hot water. This is to remove all the dirt and smell if there is any.

As usual, I try to save some gas or electricity, so I used the thermos cooker. Dump all ingredients in, bring it to boil on high and then lower the fire and leave it to boil for 25mins. Moved it into the thermos cooker. Leave it overnight. Boil it again for another 25mins on the next morning and I uses it on the next day though the recipe I found online cook it for 2-3days. It is really up to you how thick and flavourful you want the broth to be. Anyway, no salt for the soup since I'm using the pork ham leg that is already salty.

For the noodle, the original recipe found online asked for kan sui (alkaline water) but I dont have it and dont like it, so I'm using egg yolk and soda bicarbonate to substitute it.

Ingredients:

• 600g of bread flour
• 4 egg yolk
• 300ml water
• 1/2tablespoon of soda bicarbonate

Methods:

1. Pulse the bread flour and soda bicarbonate with the yolks, one by one. 
2. Add in the water, little by little caused you don't want the mixture to be too moist. The dough should be crumbly and gravel like.
3. Remove the dough from the mixer. Use the hand to press the mixture together to form proper dough balls. I have bout 8 balls. 
4. Flatten each ball and run it through the largest setting of your pasta roller a few times, folding it each time. Do it till the dough is smooth out. 
5. Fold it till square and stack up in a container, covered with wet towels. Store it in the fridge. The recipe called it for overnight, but I had it for about 5hrs.
6. Use the pasta roller and use the thinner setting to flatten the dough. Then use the pasta machine to cut the dough. I had two types, one the thinner one for the girls, at her request and the thicker one for us.
7. Upon cutting up the noodles, dry them on rack or hang it on the chopstick to dry. Now with the cool weather, it takes about 20mins to dry them up.
8. After drying, you can either cook it directly in a pot of boiling water or store it in the fridge. But prior to storing, do dust with some flour. Since it is dried, it requires a lot lesser flour to keep them apart. 
9. On the cooking part, after cooking it on the boiling water for about 3mins, pour the noodle into cold water to give it a springy taste.