This is Really About Ramen

Remember when I used to blog on a more regular basis. You know, the days when I'de have a focused theme or a dish that I would wax and wane about until fat juicy paragraphs separated the pictures with loads of interesting nonsense? The plus side to the new blog posts are that they now contain a snuggly Sadie-bug. As they say at my work place in apathetic laziness, rather than expend 5 calories to generate a unique thought, "It is what it is." Look at how f...in' snuggly she is!

What you're seeing above is the art of baby wearing. At times when the kiddo finds her sole satisfaction in life by being held/attached to you and you have laundry, and dishes, and something baking, and the dog needing to be walked, and somebody calls, and et cetera; baby wearing is awesome! The poor muskrat has taken the backseat lately. If I could get him to stay in the Baby Bjorn without stabbing my gut with his sharp little stick legs I would.

Okay, time to talk some food. We love adding cannellini beans to pasta dishes. It's especially nice when you also add goat cheese and sauteed kale!

I don't remember what Shelese was baking that day; I think it was a coffee cake. Either way, Sadie always lend her tiny hands to the project. Her tiny hands make her very useful in the kitchen. She can handle all kind of delicate matters such as stuffing dumplings, piping cake frosting, and fruit and vegetable carving.

On Sunday mornings we go for swim lessons. You can see how thrilled she is to begin the lesson this particular morning. She generally seems to enjoy the water; however, she recently graduated to advanced parent and tot class (a.k.a. the major leagues) and has not quite found her game.

There's nothing like a fresh vegetable flavored rice rusk to chew/suck on after a tough morning swimming laps at the pool. Sometimes her ego gets a little inflated being in the big leagues now and says things like, "No more pictures!"

I know this post used to be about food! Hang in there and you who are here to feed the foodie in you will be rewarded. First, look at the dang baby, she's frigin' adorable!

Okay, as promised. As part of the weekend routine, we pick up a protein that will last throughout the week for dinners and lunches for us and Sadie. This week was Alaskan Cod and can I say, "Oh my Cod!" Sorry, my humor has been tempered by a ten month old. Anywho. The cod below was marinated in sake, mirin, white miso, sesame oil, garlic, and green onion. It was seared at low heat on a cast iron skillet and served atop a bed of quinoa cooked with chicken broth. The veggies (carrot, daikon, and Napa Cabbage) were quick pickled by heating rice vinegar, salt, LaYu chili oil, and Nanami seasoning and adding the veggies until just softened but still crunchy. They were chilled for about an hour in the fridge in the pickling solution. The sauces were pesto and Siracha mayo.

She wishes she could eat that stuff!

Okay, pop quiz. How do you make healthy tofu unhealthy? Follow recipe below for the answer. Dipped some tofu steaks in Nanami seasoned flour then in beaten egg and then in panko. Acquire a little brown in the skillet and serve on top of California Brown Jasmine Rice. Oh yeah, don't forget the blanket of warm silky Japanese curry and bright fresh green onion. Normally, I would put an egg fried over easy between the blanket and the tofu but we were out that night.

Let's pause here for a little discussion about what this blog post is really about. Ramen...pause... For those of you not fortunate enough to have experienced real ramen, this paragraph is especially important for you. Ramen is not this!

 

Yes, REAL ramen has noodles and broth and... what the F?!?! Is that a sprig of rosemary in the top ramen bowl? Seriously, I just saw that. I had to take a deep breath and reset. Ramen, REAL ramen, is, as you will see, very different from the package of dried wannabe noodles and fake chicken flavored salt that you ate in college. My first encounter with Ramen happened in Japan; specifically, Osaka. My brother and I were walking, dead, through the streets of Osaka after a very very late night of excess. Hungover as hung and over as one could be. We were in absolute misery when we somehow ended up in a ramen house. All I remember was the heat and the pork and the egg and the noodles and, well everything. REAL ramen has a lot more than dehydrated chicken powder behind its flavor. There are ramens with pork and chicken and soy sauce and miso and soft boiled eggs and garlic and really anything you can think of. Most conventional ramens are either soy, miso, or salt based broths. They usually come with braised pork (belly, butt, cheek, etc.), a boiled egg, a fish cake, and of course the noodles. Additional toppings are commonly corn, spinach, and garlic. Thanks to Erik, we got the egg down pat! Perfectly set whites with silky underset yolk. We cured the peeled eggs in a combination of soy sauce, salt, and water.

Some of the ingredients: pig legs, pig trotters, sesame paste, sesame oil, lye water. The lye water was to be used to make our own noodles but we never got around to it. I'll get around to it for another blog post.

We boiled pig leg bones, pig trotters, and roasted chicken carcasses for about an hour and skimmed the scum and foam from the pot. We had a little helper in the kitchen.

Erik very proud of his egg impression of me because I'm really Asian deep down inside. I was just informed that the remaining shell is my hair.

While the broth was boiling away we braised pork belly in water, ginger, miso paste, mirin, soy sauce, sake, and white peppercorns.

Braising pork belly, broth, and black garlic sesame oil. The recipe we followed has you cook grated garlic in sesame oil until it's black. This blackened garlic oil is called Mayu and is added at the very last second to taste.

The recipe touts that real depth of flavor comes from a combination of the animal parts and the browned aromatics. After frying garlic and ginger we browned sliced onion and added all three to the broth. At this point you just walk away and add a little water from time to time. About five hours later you have your base.

To assemble the ramen you use the base and season it with ground sesame seeds, sesame paste, salted pork (we used bacon), mirin, some of the braising liquid from the pork belly, and we added miso paste and LaYu chili oil.

You've got to have a good brew with this meal.

Having attempted ramen previously and having experienced some very good ramen in restaurants, I can say that we succeeded. The base is remarkably mild in flavor and I'm convinced that the last minute seasoning could have been better. We learned that waiting a day to chill the base and braising liquid in order to separate the fat it a crucial step. We also learned that browning the braised pork in bacon grease (I know how wrong that sounds) is key to developing the belly to it's maximum potential. The eggs should be removed from the cure after no more than eight hours. Another area for experimentation is the salt pork versus bacon. The recipe states that whisking salt pork into the base creates a silky texture and the bacon doesn't solubilize the same way. Let's just focus on that egg for a second... gorgeous isn't it?