I have been hiding this one for a while. Homemade ramen. Yes, I said it. HOMEMADE RAMEN. This is not for the instant ramen fans, or the “I want ramen to make some”. No, this ramen took Kodi and I, a solid 3 days to figure out. Trial and error, add more water, boil it longer, a carton of eggs and 3 days of eating ramen. Okay, the last one was not too bad. We are very fortunate to live in a city with a large Asian community, so we had access to a lot of the ingredients that were recommended from many blogs and recipes I had read, as well as fresh ramen noodles, so we did not have to make those. I made a few trips to the deepest depths of 3 road in Richmond and found a lot of new gems that I will go back to when I make it again.
A lot of research went into the making of the broth. It is a prolonged process, but trust me, it is worth it in the end. In the end, I took a lot of tips from Alex the French Guy cooking, and David Cheng (he owns Momofuku’s, and I went to his restaurant in NYC, and that is an entirely different story you can ask me later).
Broth:
1 smoked ham hock
1 lb chicken wings
3 Portobello mushrooms
4 cloves of garlic
1 white onion cut into quarters
3 thumb size chunks of ginger
5 sprigs of green onion
2 pieces of Kombu seaweed
8 litres of water and more for top up
Place all the ingredients into a stockpot and bring to a simmer. Let it simmer for 8 hours and then top up with more water and continue to simmer for another 5 hours. Remove all the bones and big chunks of vegetables and strain the broth through a very fine sieve or cheesecloth. You want to make sure there is nothing but broth. You can use it right away or reduce further.
We reduced our further to get more flavour, also it let us freeze in cubes to use later on as Instant ramen by just adding some hot water.
For the noodles, we got frozen ramen noodles, cooked them in some hot water and added them to the broth. We also cooked a soft boiled egg and added some BBQ pork and bok choy. You can really make it whatever way you like and add your favourite seasonings. I also made some spicy tofu. SO GOOD! I have never been a huge fan of tofu but I think I have mastered the way I like it. Keep posted on how I make my tofu!
Enjoy!
