 |
|
NIPPONIA No.17 June 15, 2001
|
 |
|
|
Bon Appetit!
Japanese Culture in the Kitchen
How To Make Ramen
|
|
(1)
|
Boil water in a large pot. Add chicken bones, garlic, ginger, green onions, carrots, onions,
kombu
seaweed, and other ingredients to taste. Simmer for more than 4 hours on low heat, to make the stock.
|
|
|
|
(2)
|
Simmer a block of pork in soy sauce, sake and monosodium glutamate. The liquid becomes a gravy to which the stock is added to make a soup. Put this gravy in large soup bowls with chopped green onions.
|
|
|
(3)
|
Bring water to a boil in another pot. Cook noodles in the boiling water for about 1 minute, with the top on the pot. (The noodles will cook quickly if the pot is covered while boiling at a high heat.)
|
|
|
|
(4)
|
While the noodles are boiling, add some of the stock to the gravy in the soup bowls and blend well.
|
|
|
(5)
|
When the noodles are cooked, take them out with a strainer, shake them to remove all excess water, then add them to the soup in the bowls.
|
|
|
|
(6)
|
Garnish with thin slices of the simmered pork, bamboo-shoot pickles, boiled and strained
komatsuna
, and some hard-boiled egg.
|
|
|
This was not a passing gourmet phase but a social phenomenon, with people all over Japan setting out to find aramen restaurant that was close to perfection.
Theramen boom has subsided a little since then, but the start of the new century shows no decline in its overall popularity. Each specialty restaurant continues to refine the taste in its own way, carefully selecting just the "right" noodles and recipe for the soup, seasonings and toppings. They have to appeal to people who have developed a very discriminating palate. Competition is intense, and some restaurants have long lines of people waiting to get in. Keen enthusiasts try out new restaurants as soon as they open, write up critiques and rank them according to their own subjective standards, then post the results on their homepage. In this way, theramen fad keeps up with modern trends.
The boom began in Sapporo, northern Japan, and spread to cities in different parts of the country, each city lending its name to the local brand--Hakata, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Wakayama, Kitakata, and more.
This page introduces a Kanto (Tokyo) variety made at a restaurant called Pepe. The noodles are comparatively thin, and the clear soup, which is seasoned with soy sauce, is especially noteworthy because it is not greasy.
|
  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
