Tonkotsu ramen broth
Traditional pork-based broth, creamy white and opaque. Warning: 12 hours of cooking!
Ingredients
- 2 kg pork bones
- 2 kg pig's trotters
- 1 piece pork rind
- 8 l water≈ 8 kg
- 1 large onion (with skin)
- 10 cloves garlic
- 5 slices ginger
- 1 leek
- 15 spring onions (white and pale green parts only)
- 150 g mushrooms (shiitake or other)
Method
- 1Blanch the pork (bones and trotters) for 5 minutes. Rinse in cold water and clean thoroughly using a chopstick to remove the inside of the bones, blood, impurities and generally anything dark. This cleaning step is very important to keep the broth a clear color. It's made easier if the bones have been pre-sawn or even broken.
- 2Cut the onions into 4 thick slices without removing the skin, place them in a pan with the garlic and ginger. Burn everything over high heat. The onions should blacken. This will bring a smoky note to the broth.
- 3Clean the leek and mushrooms
- 4Add the cleaned pork, as well as all the other ingredients, to a large pot. Pork fat (rind) on top. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Skim during the first 20 minutes.
- 5Cook covered at a rolling boil for 12 hours, regularly adding the water that has evaporated.
- 6After 4 hours, take out, finely chop and set aside the pork rind.
- 7At the end of cooking, strain the broth, return it to the pot, remove the fat floating on top and reduce by a quarter.
- 8Add the amount of finely chopped rind as desired for a more or less rich broth.
Notes
This traditional recipe is for ramen enthusiasts who want to do things properly. It's an investment in time that is absolutely not worthwhile for family cooking of a few servings, but it is absolutely indispensable if you want to taste once in your life a Tonkotsu ramen with the immense pride of being able to say you made it yourself. (^__^*) Unlike meat stocks made in France that are simmered over low heat, here cooking is done at a rolling boil to extract more nutrients, collagen and fat and create an emulsion that will give the broth its opaque and creamy appearance. The broth being just the first step, to make a ramen you'll need to assemble a broth, a seasoning called 'Tare', an oil, toppings and noodles. Here are some examples and recipes: Broth: Creamy (Paitan): Tonkotsu (creamy pork broth)Tori Paitan (thick chicken broth)Clear (Chintan): Tori Chintan (light chicken broth)Dashi (light broth of fish, seaweed and mushrooms)Seasoning (Tare): Shoyu (soy sauce)Shio (salt)Miso (fermented soybean paste)Kare (curry)Aromatic oil (Koumiyu): Mayu (black garlic oil)chili oilblack sesame oilspring onion oilanchovy oilflavored pork fatflavored chicken fatbonito flake oiletc...Toppings (your choice): Chashu (rolled pork belly) or Yakibuta (braised pork)Sliced spring onionsTamago eggBean sproutsSesame seedsEnoki or Shiitake mushroomsBaby bok choyNori (seaweed sheet)Menma (fermented bamboo)Beni shoga (pickled red ginger)etc...Noodles: see the recipe if you want to make them homemade
