“What is Ramen?” Can you answer this simple and sometimes deep question?
Today, I’m gonna tell you about the basics of Ramen.
Ramen consists of 3 parts, Soup, Noodles and Toppings.
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・Soup
Soup is the most important, complex and costly part. Soup is the heart of Ramen. Every chef is struggling to make their soup greater than the past everyday for a long time.
Soup consists of three parts: Soup, oil and Kaeshi.
This is very confusing even for general Japanese, Soup includes Soup. In this meaning, Soup is stock or bone broth. Soup is cooked by simmering animal bones, fish bones, sea foods, vegetables, herbs, spices and so on. Ingredients depend on the chef and style.
Thick soup needs a lot of time, at least 5 hours, and simple fresh soup needs about 1 hours.
But the time of simmering doesn’t directly affect the quality of the ramen.
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・Oil
Oil does great work for the flavor. Every kind of animal and vegetable oil is to be used. Lard (pork fat) and chicken fat are the most common animal oil. As to vegetable oil, rapeseeds oil, canola oil and sesame oil are popular. Vegetable oils are often not used as it is. These are used after adding flavor by simmering multiple ingredients like herbs, sea foods, spices etc.
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・Kaeshi
We can say Kaeshi is the key potion of the taste. Kaeshi is also called Tale(pronunciation is not tail). Kaeshi’s main role is adding saltiness. It’s like a sauce for French, salt for steak, ketchup for hamburger etc. Without Kaeshi, If other parts are cooked completely, the taste is not completely acceptable. Kaeshi is important like that.
Kaeshi is made from a lot of ingredients and has many styles. There are three typical styles: Showyu(soy sauce), Shio(salt) and Miso(soy paste). You may have heard these names. Yes, these famous Ramen’s genre come from what kind of Kaeshi is used. If you are a Ramen freak, you may be wondering “So, what is my favorite Tonkotsu Ramen?”. Tonkotsu is the name comes from the soup style. These days, there are a lot of genres, but genres don’t come from one perspective. This is one of the most complex points, I know. This is one reason why I established Ramen Times. I’m gonna explain about all genres here in the future step by step.
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・Noodles
I said soup is the most important and costly part and that is correct. But the part you eat mainly is Noodles. Noodles are principal and as important as soup.
Noodles also have a lot of types. It’s length, width, shape, water addition rate, color, ingredients etc.
Ramen Noodles are basically made from wheat, salt, water and Kansui. Kansui is used to create the distinctive flavor and unique texture of ramen. There are a lot of opinions for the definition of Ramen, and one is whether noodles include Kansui or not.
Kansui was used in old china where is the origin of Ramen. I’ll try to explain more about Kansui next time.
Noodles are put into a bowl after boiling. Boiling time has a wide range from 1 seconds to over 10 minutes! Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen needs the shortest time, and Tsukemen or Jirow needs the longest.
Ramen chefs are looking for and testing the best harmony of Noodles and Soup.
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・Toppings
Ramen chefs are also working hard for the toppings. When your ramen is served, you can see a lot of toppings on the noodles and soup. Toppings mean all except soup and noodles.
Typical toppings are chahshu(sliced meat), green onions, seaweed sheet, egg and so on. Toppings especially show the restaurant and chef’s individuality and style. But, how toppings are tasty or remarkable, Ramen can’t be masterpiece without good soup and noodles.
These parts are put into one bowl in order. The bowl is called “Donburi” or “Don”. Sometimes called “Ramen Don”. Because Donburi is used for other Japanese foods like Gyudon, Unadon, Tendon and so on.
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This is the way of creat Ramen
1.Put Kaeshi, Oil and soup into Donburi.
2.Stirring soup well to blend
3.Dress boiled Noodles and the Soup
4.Put Toppings on
5.Finish!
Now, you know what Ramen is, ingredients and how to assemble it!
Almost all of Japanese people don’t know at this level.
Let’s learn together about the deep Ramen world.