Chashu, Quick Menma, & Other Ramen Toppings

Haven’t really tried out new recipes in a while. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking; we have actually been making food more than we used to, but since trying to start our new “diet” I’ve been just scrounging or whipping up something very simple. If I even use a recipe, it’s extremely basic and there is really not much worth documenting.

This little ramen box was from over the holidays (so this post is like a month late hah).

Around this time two years ago, I was deeply into the planning phases of our Asia trip. And now… there’s still no end in sight or any upcoming windows to actually travel internationally. So as a consolation prize of sorts, I bought myself a box of “gourmet” instant ramen shipped straight from Japan. And I figured that if they were truly fancy ramen that emulated a real bowl of ramen, then they deserved real ramen toppings.

So that’s what we ate for dinner for most of a week.

Black garlic tonkotsu

Toppings... assemble

Toppings made: Chashu, jammy eggs marinated in chashu braising liquid, quick shortcut menma, buttered corn, roasted tomato

Chashu

Poorly tied and in the pot

Out of the oven! Should have lined tray with foil

1. Prepare pork belly: roll up 3 lbs pork belly and truss it into a circle with butcher’s twine. (Optional)

   • This doesn’t have to be done well. I just took one long piece of string and rolled it around. But make sure it’s tight.

2. In a pot, combine:

   • 1 cup water

   • 1/2 cup soy sauce

   • 1/4 cup mirin

   • 2 Tbsp brown sugar

   • 2 cloves garlic, smashed

3. Place rolled pork belly in pot and cover, skin side up at first.

   • Add a little more water if necessary so at least half the pork is submerged.

   • Choosing the right sized pot is crucial! Big enough to fit the pork, but snugly - the liquid needs to come up the sides enough.

4. Bring liquid to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Cover with lid and cook for 2-3 hours, flipping every 45 min-1hr so all the pork has time in contact with the braising liquid. (When done, the roll should be jiggly.)

5. Remove cooked chashu roll from the pot and cool on a rack to evaporate the moisture.

   • Save the braising liquid! Chill it in a separate bowl so the fat can be easily separated. Use the liquid as ramen egg marinade and the fat for tare (should you choose to go yet another extra mile).

6. Once it’s warm to the touch, finish the pork (on the rack still) on a 450F oven for ~10 minute. Keep an eye on it in case the sugar burns too quickly.

7. Chill completely in fridge before slicing and rewarming for ramen bowls.

Roasted and browned

Jiggly flavor (save the fat for cooking too!)

Bonus side recipe: Ramen eggs - sure, you can make ramen eggs with the regular soy-based marinade, but they taste so so good with the leftover braising liquid! It may need to be diluted around 1:1 depending on how salty yours tastes. The exact marinade concentration doesn’t matter too much; you’ll just need to adjust your marinade time. Strong marinades - remove eggs around 24 hours if the egg looks dark. Weaker marinades - leave it in for longer. Nbd.

“Instructions” lol

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and gently drop eggs in. Start timer for 7 minutes.

2. After 7 minutes, remove all eggs and rinse under running water until the exterior of the eggs are cool enough to touch. Let them soak in a bowl of cold/iced water until completely cool.

3. Peel the eggs - this is slightly difficult with soft boiled eggs. The whites always break because the force of the tapping smushes the whites instead of cracks the shells.

   • The trick is to gently crack them once on a hard surface, and use another egg to gently tap the rest of the surface until the shell is very broken. By that point the shell should come out easily, and the egg is still in tact!

   • The last egg might be a sacrificial egg with no other egg to help him - but you know what that’s called? A chef snack.

4. Soak them in marinade made from leftover braising liquid until the egg is fully cured. Don’t leave them too long in a strong marinade. It will get too salty and the whites will become rubbery.

Notes

• Instead of rolling the pork up for that iconic look, you can just slice into thick strips and place them in the pot a lot more easily.

• Even if you don’t use it to make ramen eggs, save that braising liquid! It’s so jiggly and thick from the gelatin and full of intense pork flavor. Use a tiny dab in place of soy sauce in whatever else you cook to add an extra dimension of flavor.

Quick Menma

Before

After

This recipe is for those of us who don’t have the energy to travel to an Asian store to buy real menma, which is prepared using a longer fermentation process. I was definitely surprised by how close this tasted to the real deal despite being from a can of overpriced Whole Foods “Asian” aisle bamboo shoots.

1. Slice canned bamboo planks shoots into long match sticks.

2. Rinse with hot water to remove some of the funky flavor.

3. Saute in sesame oil for 2-3 minutes, then add:

   • 100mL chicken stock (the instant stuff works fine):

     • 100g water

     • tiny dab chicken bouillon paste or Knorr chicken powder

   • 1 tsp sake

   • 2 tsp soy sauce

   • 2 tsp mirin

4. Simmer until the liquid is about 90% evaporated/absorbed.

Hokkaido miso with charred chashu

Miso with cabbage stirfry topping

Also included here are some pictures of the ramen we ate from the box. They were really delicious, but didn’t feel instant enough? That’s a weird thing to say but it tasted like regular noodles with a very nice broth concentrate paste. I sort of expected/craved curly deep fried ramen noodles that also have that intensely flavorful broth. Still delicious though, and worth the effort we put in the toppings.

Quick menma: randomly floating on the internet. Chashu: Ramen lord. Eggs: me!