Ramen soup

Author: Camila Santamaria

I’m a big fan of asian food. I’ve been to Asia two times, spending 6 months the last time getting to know different landscapes, cultures and of course FOOD.

There’s a lot of hypothesis about what ramen means, but the one I’ve seen the most is that ramen is the combination of 2 words: “ra” that means stretching and “men” that means noodle. So basically ramen will be stretched noodles, the technique they use in Japan to make noodles.

Before we go to the recipe, there’s 2 important things you need to know:

1. Original ramen soup is made with a lot of ingredients that are quite hard to get in the western world, that’s why I did a big research and found ingredients in asian shops in Europe that we can use to make ramen soup but of course is always better with the original ingredients. This is a western version of the traditional japanese ramen soup, otherwise it will be impossible for you to make it and I will fail as a food blogger.

2. There’s a big difference with the other soup recipes I’ve posted. For this recipe you must cook the noodles separately. The noodles don’t touch the soup until you serve them. If you can’t find ramen noodles in the asian shop you can use the classic egg noodle or rice noodles. Ready to start?

Ingredients

For the broth
– 2 lt. of water
– 4 shiitake mushrooms (dried asian mushrooms)
– 2 carrots
– 2 celery sticks
– 1 smashed garlic
– 1/4 cup smashed ginger
– 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar
– 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
– 2 tablespoons of fish sauce
– 1 teaspoon of sriracha sauce (chili sauce)
– 1 tablespoon of brown sugar

For the soup
– Sesame oil
– 1 chopped onion
– 1/4 cup of chopped bambu shoots (comes in a can. Available in asian shops)
– 1 tablespoon of chopped garlic
– 1 cup of tofu cut in small cubes
– 2 spring onions, chopped
– 1 pak choi cut in half
– 1/2 cup of soybean sprouts
– Ramen noodles (dry or fresh) for 3 portions.
– Roasted sesame seeds

 
Step by step

Put all the broth ingredients in a pot. Cover and cook for 2 hours at low temperature. After 2 hours take the ingredients out and use only the broth.

In another pot put some sesame oil and fry the onion, garlic and bambu shoots for a couple of minutes. Add the broth and let it boil for 5 minutes.

In a separate pot cook the noodles according to package instructions.

Add the tofu, the soybean sprouts and the pak choi and let it boil for 3-5 minutes.

Just before serving add the spring onion.

The serving should be the soup in one bowl and the noodles in another bowl, but I like to have them together so I put the noodles in the bowl and then add the soup. Add some sesame seeds on top.

more food on my blog http://chakula.cl/author/hotlucci-2/