Ramen Recipes

[danjou]

Hello all,

ahhhh noodles, my favorite food...

Now about beef noodles....

beef noodles are staple fare in Taiwan and hong Kong, and while both the Taiwanese version and Hong Kong version share some similarity to Japanese ramen, there are many differences as well.

In Hong Kong, the beef is cooked separately in a stewing sauce of soy sauce, some sugar,star anise, cinnamon, garlic, ginger and leeks . The cut is usually brisket and temdon.

The noodles are thin kansui based egg noodles, also called Hong Kong style "won ton noodles'. They are at times made with potassium or ammonium carbonate so there is at times a far stronger chemical note, and are chewier and far thinner than Japanese ramen.

The soup is usually a light chicken and pork stock to which chives and dried fish and shrimp have been added.

The noodles are cooked al dente, rinsed, and blanched again, then placed in a bowl; soup (and wonton if one so wishes) is ladled into the bowl

and a ladle full of the stewed beef brisket is placed into the bowl, the sauce of the beef mixing with the soup. and spring onions are sprinkled on top.

This is called, in Cantonese "Ngow lam meen".

A variation is the noodles, without soup with just the tender beef and sauce ladled over, called "ngow lam lo meen"

In Taiwan, beef noodles are a sort of national dish, but it is different as usually only wheat flour and water are used to make the noodles, with no kansui or egg. They are similar in diameter to Hiyanumgi udon, and can be referrred to as "shanghai" noodles in Hong Kong.

The dish supposedly has Szechuan and Hunanese origins, and some peiople think it came specifically from Nanking ( Hence "Nanking beef noodles"), regardless.....

The recipes for the stewed beef are numerous, but they involve more aromatics like garlic, ginger, a Szechuanese caramel ( more on this later) to give a deep red, chilli sauce, and the beef is slow cooked till tender,

The coolked noodles are places in a bowl, broth...which can be beef bone based, or chicken and pork based, is ladled in, and the spicy beef and some of its rich sauce are placed on top.

This is the famous Taiwanese "Nieu roh mien".

cheers...

Ed

Edited April 8, 2006 by danjou (log)

[danjou]

ooops, pardon the typo. I meant hiyamugi udon....

Ed

[torakris]

Ed, as always thank you for another very informative post.

I wonder why the Japanese don't use beef stock as much as other Asian countries?

[ojisan]

I'm looking for a recipe for braised bamboo shoots - the kind that is a typical topping on ramen. I would be starting with the whole tips, which I can buy vacuum sealed in plastic. I assume the braise contains shoyu and sesame oil, but I don't know what else. I'm not even sure what this dish is called (menma?). Any recipes out there?

[torakris]

I never thought about making menma.....

I could only find one recipe in English, but it calls for dried (salted) bamboo shoots.

Can you read Japanese?

and welcome to eGullet and the Japan Forum!

[torakris]

Looking on Japanese sites I have learned that menma is actually made from a specific bamboo called machiku 麻竹.

It is steamed, salted and then fermented this is the menma we are most familiar with but it is also sold dried and water packed. Almost all of it comes into Japan from Chian and Taiwan.

[ojisan]

Maybe Menma is not the name I'm looking for. I wonder what the ramenya use....

[Hiroyuki]

Maybe Menma is not the name I'm looking for. I wonder what the ramenya use....

←

I'm pretty sure menma is what you are looking for. Ramenya use it. Another name for menma is shina chiku (lit. Chinese bamboo).

[torakris]

I am pretty sure that menma is the about the only bamboo topping used by ramen-ya.

[torakris]

I just found the coolest site!

It is all in Japanese but with pictures of every step, this guy has about 30 versions of his homemade ramen and almost all of the recipes are made completely from scratch. Including the soup, noodles, yakibuta, menma, etc.

EDITED to add the link to the site....

Edited April 14, 2006 by torakris (log)

[Sencha]

Wow! He must really like ramen!

Sounds good!

I should try some of it out sometime, but I really don't have enough people to help me eat it at the moment, and I really don't like living off ramen for a week.

[Hiroyuki]

Wow! He must really like ramen!

Sounds good!

I should try some of it out sometime, but I really don't have enough people to help me eat it at the moment, and I really don't like living off ramen for a week.

←

That's my problem as well.

I found this blog months ago, but I really don't want to make tonkotsu ramen and eat it for days...

[alvis]

I just found the coolest site!

It is all in Japanese but with pictures of every step, this guy has about 30 versions of his homemade ramen and almost all of the recipes are made completely from scratch. Including the soup, noodles, yakibuta, menma, etc.

EDITED to add the link to the site....

←

Wow...Very Cool site. Torakris, thanks for the Link! That guy is something else!

Anyways, I tried making Ramen again so here are a couple of pics to share:

This time I attempted to make beef chashu. The end product tasted decent however I should have bought a fattier cut of beef. The cut I used was the brisket cut from my local supermarket. I did attempt to ask the butcher for the cow equivalent to pork belly but to no avail. He said they use that for ground beef. Most likely I'll need to go to an asian butcher shop.

[torakris]

Beef chashu? I have never seen that before, but that picture is mouthwatering.

Is the soup homemade as well? It looks incredible!

[Jason Perlow]

Here's a Berkshire Pork ramen from Momofuku in NYC:

NYC Dining: Momofuku (Off The Broiler)

[alvis]

Beef chashu? I have never seen that before, but that picture is mouthwatering.

Is the soup homemade as well? It looks incredible!

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Thanks for the compliment!

Yeah, I made the soup from scratch again with basically the same recipe as my first try. The same with the noodles too except I used more egg yolk this time to see if it would be more yellow. Maybe the commercially made ones uses food coloring.. hmm

Jason:

Are the noodles from Momofuku egg noodles?

[cyen]

Hope people don't mind me digging up the old thread, but I figure there's no point of starting a new thread if this one already existed. Anyway, my favorite Japanese "Chinese" restaurant in the area is about to change cook and manager, and I'm worrie the food would taste different once the chef leaves. This has inspired me to try making ramen. I know what I make won't taste the same as the one in the restaurant, but it seems like something fun and different to try. Who knows, maybe I'll make something that I'll like even more than the one in the restaurant.

I'm interested to know more about the fish stock-based ramen stock. I've made fish stocks using bonito and such for Japanese cooking, but I wonder how similar or different for fish stock for ramen. I'm assuming that more ingredients are added and longer cooking time is required to get the rich, thick, complex favor and texture of a ramen stock. Also, do people combine more pork based stock with fish stock or the pork stock would overpower the fish stock?

The tonkotsu recipes look quite intriguing. I think I'll try those recipes too.

Edited March 29, 2007 by cyen (log)

[Hiroyuki]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to post this, but I can't find any other good one, so here it is.

Yesterday, I went shopping and bought some Yaki Chicken. I cooked two packages for lunch for my children. Here is a pic.

I wasn't sure what Yaki Chicken was, so I googled and found that it was released only last week, July 17.

Here are related webpages, both in Japanese only:

http://www.nissinfoods.co.jp/com/news/news...e.html?nid=1167

http://www.chikinramen.com/present/yaki_pre/yaki_pre.html

Basically, it's a yakisoba version of Chicken Ramen, but I found it wasn't seasoned with yakisoba sauce. It's chicken ramen-flavored yakisoba, with oyster sauce used as a secret ingredient. Overall, it wasn't bad, but I don't know if I will buy it again.

[shinju]

Hope people don't mind me digging up the old thread, but I figure there's no point of starting a new thread if this one already existed.  Anyway, my favorite Japanese "Chinese" restaurant in the area is about to change cook and manager, and I'm worrie the food would taste different once the chef leaves.  This has inspired me to try making ramen.  I know what I make won't taste the same as the one in the restaurant, but it seems like something fun and different to try.  Who knows, maybe I'll make something that I'll like even more than the one in the restaurant.

I'm interested to know more about the fish stock-based ramen stock.  I've made fish stocks using bonito and such for Japanese cooking, but I wonder how similar or different for fish stock for ramen.  I'm assuming that more ingredients are added and longer cooking time is required to get the rich, thick, complex favor and texture of a ramen stock.  Also, do people combine more pork based stock with fish stock or the pork stock would overpower the fish stock?

The tonkotsu recipes look quite intriguing.  I think I'll try those recipes too.

←

Have you had any good results making ramen soup from scratch yet? I have been trying to duplicate the soup for a while too, but still not there yet. There is a distinct taste in many ramen soups that is missing in my soups.

I usually start with roasted chicken bones, onion, carrots, celery, ginger, garlic, sometimes apples, and sesame oil. Mine stock does not have the complexity usually found in good ramen soups. I see that in many of the recipes for making ramen, both soup or stock is separate from tare.

[alwang]

I made a "ramen" broth the other weekend that I was very happy with: it was sort of inspired by ramen I've had at Setagaya in New York. It was primarily pork bones, but there was also some chicken bone, dried scallops, dried shiitake, nori, onion, carrot, and chinese dried brine shrimp. I think mixing the pork with a little chicken and seafood gives it a more complex flavor, even though it's still primarily tonkatsu. The other thing is I did the whole broth in a pressure cooker, no pre-blanching or browning of bones. This vastly speeds up the cooking time, but limits how much you can make at one time. Once I reduced down the broth a little, it was pretty delicious, very comparable to better ramen I've had in New York.

Now, noodles are a different story. I was forced to use Chinese-style dried flour noodles, and they were just not the right consistency. Is there a quality dried noodle that would be suitable for ramen? I've looked in asian markets, including Japanese markets in Manhattan, and all I see are instant ramen, or other noodle types. If anyone has an easy to follow recipe for fresh ramen noodles, that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks,

-al

[shinju]

Now, noodles are a different story.  I was forced to use Chinese-style dried flour noodles, and they were just not the right consistency.  Is there a quality dried noodle that would be suitable for ramen?  I've looked in asian markets, including Japanese markets in Manhattan, and all I see are instant ramen, or other noodle types.  If anyone has an easy to follow recipe for fresh ramen noodles, that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks,

-al

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I notice that many ramen restaurants in the US use thicker style ramen noodle. Is that what you are looking for? I prefer thinner ramen noodle and haven't found those in the US yet. Also, are you looking for straighter noodle or those with lots of kinks and easticity?

[Hiroyuki]

I often make ramen for lunch for a couple of months. This is because I found nice, thin ramen noodles, shown on the right.

Initially, I bought a pack to try them for the Cold Noodle cook-off in the Cooking Forum, but they are so good I keep buying them.

My recipe is quite simple.

Put a 1/2 teaspoon chicken dashi powder in a bowl, add 150 ml water from the thermos, and some soy sause (dashi to soy sauce ratio = approx. 12:1).

Bring water to a boil in a frying pan, add one serving of noodles, boil for 1 min. I measure the time because I don't want to overcook it.

I wish I had some naruto and spinach, which will make a perfect bowl of ramen for me.

[Ce'nedra]

Ooo everyone's ramen looks soo good! I'd be really happy if anyone could share some authentic ramen recipes

I tried making Japanese curry ramen once -trial and error. Didn't use a recipe, kind of created it as I went along

It was okay -a bit salty- but still okay (doesn't look all that appetising I know).

[Hiroyuki]

Ooo everyone's ramen looks soo good! I'd be really happy if anyone could share some authentic ramen recipes 

I tried making Japanese curry ramen once -trial and error. Didn't use a recipe, kind of created it as I went along 

It was okay -a bit salty- but still okay (doesn't look all that appetising I know).

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Your ramen looks good, much better than mine. Japanese curry ramen? I've never heard of it.

Ramen is huge over here. There are a lot of serious ramen lovers here in Japan, but I myself cannot take ramen seriously, and don't have any recipes to share. Ramen is just what you might call a comfort food to me.

Edited to add:

OK, I was wrong. There are such things as curry ramen. I like curry udon and curry soba, but I find curry ramen not so appetizing.

Edited October 5, 2007 by Hiroyuki (log)

[Ce'nedra]

Your ramen looks good, much better than mine.  Japanese curry ramen?  I've never heard of it.

Ramen is huge over here.  There are a lot of serious ramen lovers here in Japan, but I myself cannot take ramen seriously, and don't have any recipes to share.   Ramen is just what you might call a comfort food to me.

Edited to add:

OK, I was wrong.  There are such things as curry ramen.  I like curry udon and curry soba, but I find curry ramen not so appetizing.

←

Thank you! That was my first time making ramen

Oh how can you not take ramen seriously?

It's one my favourite foods of all time hahha! I love Japanese curry but I guess it's not for everyone hehe.