Making (Almost) Tonkotsu and Spicy Miso Ramen At Home

Short version

For the broth

Japanese soy sauce

Salt

Fish sauce (unorthodox to ramen but being Vietnamese, I couldn't help it)

Mushroom powder

1 head of garlic

2 large white onions

4 large shallots/onion hybrid (red kind)

12 pounds of trotter

3 pounds pork shoulder 

2 stewing chickens

For the toppings
Red miso

Few Eggs
2 heads of garlic
Sesame (white)

Japanese soy sauce

3 bundles green onions

Bean sprouts
1/4 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of sesame oil
Few packets of kind of fresh ramen

5 pounds char-sou-like pork (I used pork belly because my market didn't carry a more meaty cut)

I wasn't ready to make my own ramen noodle. Some things are better left for the professionals so I bought curly yakisoba noodles from the cold section of my asian market. You can blanch the noodles for about 2 minutes before serving.

Let's get to working...

Cooking
1. Wash all meat in boiling water for 10 minutes. Reheat enough water to cover meat for the broth.
2. Grill/ saute onions, garlic, ginger, white ends of green onion and put them in the broth
3. Stir broth every hour so bones will not burn
4. 3 hours before serving, add char-siu-like pork to broth (I only had access to pork belly so I added pork belly). Take out of broth after 3 hours and slice to serve.
5. Add salt, mushroom powder, japanese soy sauce, and fish sauce. You can leave out some of these seasonings as you wish. All salt would be just fine but I added all 4.

Prepping
1. Cut green onions finely as finely as you'd like
2. Finely chop garlic or put them in the food processor with a few tbsp of water (serve fresh and save some for "mayu")
3. Mayu: Saute some finely chopped garlic with some canola oil(1/4 cup) on low heat. Let them brown. Add some sesame oil (1/4 cup).
4. Boil room temperature eggs for 6 minutes. Peel and soak halfway in Japanese soy sauce for 30 minutes on each side.
5. Roast sesame for 5 minutes on medium heat
5. Blanch bean sprouts to your liking (1 minute for me, still a little crunchy)
6. Blanch yakisoba to your liking (2 minutes in boiling water for me = al dente)

Long version
After having my first authentic bowl of Japanese ramen at Daikokuya in downtown LA in 2012, I've never had another bowl of bagged ramen. Since then, everywhere I go I'd look for a new ramen place to try. My go-to broth style is the tonkotsu with an extra kick (either spicy miso or original topknots with extra chilli paste or oil). My first time making ramen broth and preparing the toppings revolved around my favorite broth styles as aforementioned.


     Tonkotsu-based Spicy Miso Style

Ingredients:

For the broth

Japanese soy sauce

Salt

Fish sauce (unorthodox to ramen but being Vietnamese, I couldn't help it)

Mushroom powder

1 head of garlic

2 large white onions

4 large shallots/onion hybrid (red kind)

12 pounds of trotter

3 pounds pork shoulder 

2 stewing chickens

For the toppings

Red miso
Eggs
2 heads of garlic
Sesame (white)

Japanese soy sauce

3 bundles green onions

Bean sprouts
1/4 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of sesame oil
Few packets of ramen

5 pounds char-sou-like pork (I used pork belly because my market didn't carry a more meaty cut)

I wasn't ready to make my own ramen noodle. Some things are better left for the professionals so I bought curly yakisoba noodles from the cold section of my asian market. You can blanch the noodles for about 2 minutes before serving.

Let's get to working...

1A. Boil enough water to wash the chicken and pork bones. This step is important for cleaning out the gunk that you see here in the photo. After the chicken and pork have been boiling for 10 minutes, pour everything into your sink or a large tub if you have one, then wash the foamy debris. 

While you're washing, bring another pot of water to a boil and add the cleaned bones and chickens. 

2. After adding cleaned bones to the soon-to-be broth, grill the onions (white and red), garlic (2 cloves), and ginger (couple pieces) to add to the broth. There's something about the aromatics of burnt onions, garlic and ginger that can't be missed. The outer onion skin will fall off on its own after some time on the pan, you can remove it from the pan then (I was a little lazy to peel from the beginning). 

Similarly, saute the white ends of the scallions to add to the broth, too. While the white ends are sautéing, cut the green ends thinly so they can be used for garnish later. Or you can save this latter step for when the broth is ready.

3. After the onion, garlic, scallion ends, chicken and pork are in the broth, bring everything to a medium boil and close the lid. Monitor every 45 minutes or so to make sure it's not over-boiling and overflowing. I kept my fire at just under medium heat. Stir every hour so the bones at the bottom will not burn. The waiting game has begun. 

4. Three hours before you complete the cooking process (I cooked for 24 hours so at hour 21): put into the broth a cut of pork meat that's slightly fatty. My local supermarket didn't carry the char siu-like cut so I settled for pork belly, which is a lot more fatty than the typical ramen topping pork but it was better than nothing. Some people choose to braise their pork in soy sauce and onion but I was lazy, again. Pull out your meat after 3 hours and slice 'em up to serve.

Here's what the broth looks like throughout my day of cooking. Sorry for the inconsistent lighting at the 12th hour. I had to take that photo before heading to bed. I'm not sure why my broth at the 24th hour seems darker than that of the 6th hour, maybe because of the dissolved burned onions and bones? The broth didn't taste burnt so that's just a guess. 

4. Season with salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, or mushroom powder to your liking. I used all 4, which is untraditional but that's what I felt comfortable doing and my broth came out okay ;). Plus, none of the recipes I was consulting with mentioned anything about seasoning! 

For the toppings

Spicy miso: Saute finely chopped garlic (6 cloves) , red chili flakes (1.5 tblsp), red miso (5 tblsp) and canola oil (1 tsp) for 5 minutes. If you'd like to eat the spicy miso version, boil enough tonkotsu broth for one serving in a separate pot and add a heaping teaspoon of the spicy miso mixture. Bring broth and spicy miso to a boil before serving. 

Green onion: so you've used the white ends already, now cut the green leaves as thinly as possible (I was lazy and stopped cutting thinly halfway through cutting but you don't have to be like me...in fact, you probably shouldn't)

Eggs: bring your water to a boil. Put in room temperature eggs and boil for 6 minutes. Make sure the eggs are covered in water to boil it evenly. Make sure your eggs are room temperature or you'll end up undercooking your eggs, making them hard to peel. I had to eat 4 eggs at midnight because I broke all of them while peeling. My mistakes = less experimenting for you. If you don't have time for cold eggs to warm up, just soak them in a bit of hot water  in a bowl until you feel like it's room temperature, then start the timer for boiling. 

After peeling your soft-boiled eggs, soak the eggs in Japanese soy sauce. If you cover the eggs halfway with soy sauce, turn the eggs after 30 minutes. Your entire soaking process should take 1 hour if you fill soy sauce halfway each time. You can increase the time the eggs are soaking in soy sauce if you want the eggs to be more salty. 

Fresh garlic: Peel 2 heads of garlic and cut off the ends. Chop coarsely and put them in a food processor with a few table spoons of water to ease the spinning. Let the processor chop your garlic finely. You can manually chop your garlic, too, if you don't have a food processor but it will take longer. I would suggest investing in one. I bought a small one for $15. 

Fake mayu (the brown stuff on top of the green onions in my picture):  mayu is black garlic oil. I wasn't quite down to almost burn my garlic --- honestly, I didn't trust my cooking skills. I'm a professional burner.   Take half of the finely chopped garlic  and sautéed in canola oil(1/4 cup) slowly (low heat), stir often. It took 20 minutes to complete the "mayu" for me but timing may be a bit different for you since every stove is different. If you cook the garlic too quickly, it'll burn and make your may very bitter. When your garlic has browned, add sesame oil(1/4 cup) to your canola and garlic combo in the pan. Sauté everything together for another 2 minutes. 

Roasted sesame: roast as much sesame as you'd like. Put on low medium heat to roast. Roasted sesame is a simple way to increase the complexity of your ramen. The freshly toasted sesame smells and tastes differently than the stuff from a little bottle with seaweed you often see in grocery stores. Take the extra 5 minutes.

Bean sprouts: blanch to your liking. I soaked my bean sprouts in boiling water for 1 minute. I like it slightly crunchy.