Homemade Ramen

[chestnutrice]

Hello all,


Ever watch Simply Ming on the HSN channel? I recently caught an episode where he had "Ramen King" Ivan Orkin on to make a "quick" version of his restaurant ramen. Long story short, in order to make it quick, he uses boxed chicken broth, which I don't see an issue with in itself. However, I'm aware ramen is a very rich and fatty dish and when I made it last I cooked down a pound of so of chicken wings. As a substitute (upon thinking, maybe this belongs on the substitute forum. Oh well...) he uses a significant amount of (canola) oil in the tare. In the show, it doesn't look like much, but in the recipe provided on Ming's site (https://www.ming.com/ivan-orkin), it calls for 1 cup + 3/4 cup of oil!!. And this is supposed to go in a tare of 6oz soy, 2 mirin, 2 sake. That just seems extremely oily! I understand he's compensating for the broth being virtually fat-free, given that it's based on a standard dashi and boxed chicken broth. But that just seems like waaaay to much oil. Maybe it's a typo...? I rendered some pork fat so I have plenty of delicious oils. Do you think I can skip all that extra (processed canola) oil? Thanks!

 

[Kathleen]

Welcome to DC, Chestnutrice!

I am no expert, but it seems that you could easily do away with that much oil. I'd have some oil because fat is flavor. It states that one would use an ounce of the oil mixture per bowl. However, if you don't want that much, don't add it.

Personally, I don't care for canola oil, so I would look for other options. Experiment and let us know! With a picture!!!

 

[GotGarlic]

Hi and welcome to Discuss Cooking [emoji2]

You can definitely use the pork fat you have, but did you read the entire recipe? It says you will need one ounce (2 tbsp) of the seasoned oil per bowl of soup.

Also, it's not just the fat in broths that is important - when you make a broth or stock with bones, you get a lot of gelatin from rendering the connective tissue that gives it body (a bit of thickness). You can get that effect by adding some powdered gelatin to your broth.

 

[summer57]

I love ramen, and usually make tonkatsu style. I use kombu, split pig trotters, and chicken backs for the broth, plus a few other things. It's time-consuming, but so good. There's not a lot of fat, but it's rich with gelatin from the trotters.

 

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum!

Though there are many types of Asian noodles I make all of the time, ramen noodles are the one that I never really got hooked on, due to all the oil in them.

 

[summer57]

I'm not a fan of fatty or oily ramen, either. Here's a bowl I made a while ago. The deep-fried pork belly is definitely on the fatty side, but the ramen broth isn't, though it's quite rich with the collagen from the pig trotters.

I used rice noodles instead of typical ramen noodles - it needed to be gluten-free for my husband.

 

[Kathleen]

That looks quite nice, Summer57! Also, welcome to DC.

 

[summer57]

Thanks! It's a huge potion, but my husband's a big eater lol. My bowl was maybe a quarter of the size.