Making Ramen

Making ramen is awesome, I must admit I have no formal training but have been fiddling with stuff through trial and error the last 8 years or so. In order to follow any of these instructions you'll need a few things from a Japanese supermarket (unless you live in Hawaii or Japan where they are stocked everywhere).

Every time I make ramen is different but here is what I did last time 2015.06.17:

Filled pot with about 4 - 5 cups of water and put over medium heat.

Added a pinch of Dashi and 2 Tbsp's of Miso Paste

Added a splash Sake

Added 1/8 yellow onion sliced to 1mm - 2mm

Added 2 sliced brown mushrooms

Leave on medium about 5 - 10 minutes stirring occasionally to let the onions soften, mushrooms release flavor, and miso paste dissolve.

After soup base is flavored add dry noodles directly into pot (most times I boil the noodles separately but if you time it right and have the right noodles you can get away with a decent noodle taste without separating, this is a serious no no for any proper ramen shop.)

The noodles I had took about 4 - 5 minutes to become al dente so I waited about 2 minutes before I put in the vegis, timing when you put the vegis in is paramount, be sure to think about how long you'd think the vegi's would need to be in boiling water to taste they're best and shoot to have the noodles and vegis be done to your liking at the same time.

I added string beans cut to 1 - 2 inches @ 3 minutes after the noodles went in

I added chopped cabbage @ 4 minutes after the noodles went in

Throughout this whole proccess it's important to try to keep the water as close to boiling but not boiling the entire time. When the soup comes off the stove it should be nearly rolling. This is important of you want to be legit.

Once the noodle and vegi's are to your liking, I prefer al dente as if the bowl is piping hot the noodles will just be getting too soft near the end of inhaling it.

Dump contents into bowl.

Garnished with Tri-Tip (Adding pre-cooked meat is a sweet way to use up left overs and rock out your ramen, if you don't do meat lots of leftovers work great as noodle toppers, stir-fry's, etc.) I've found that it works best to add any meat as a garnish instead of putting in the pot while boiling as the meat will maintain it's originally cooked texture. Pre-cooked Rare to Medium meats work the best.

Garnished with Green Onion

• For those who like spice white pepper (for ramen) or togarashi (for udon) are traditionally used but I use Togarashi on Everything.

• Ideally I boil the noodles in a separate water container drain then pour the soup over but this time I didn't.

Specialty Ingredients:

Miso Paste - (I've tried ones from natural food stores but nothing beats an authentic Japanese paste, there are a ton of different flavors and colors from sweet to mild to extra salty. I like the salty ones for noodle soups. The safe bet is a white miso. (Generally what's served at Japanese restaurants.)

Hon Dashi (Power/Flakes) - This is a simple salt/msg infused fish stock that is put in a large portion of Japanese dishes.

Tsuyu Soup Base (Bottled) - At a Japanese grocery you'll find a whole row of this stuff which makes it really difficult to decide which on you should buy, I have no idea what the names of the ones I've gotten before are but they are all tasty generally if you pay more you get a bit more depth of flavor.

• Nice to Haves:

Wakame

Shitake (If you can get your hands on freshly picked Shitake's you'll soon be in Ramen heaven.

Vegis