Miso ramen: a ninety-minute broth and miso stirred in off the heat
A bowl of ramen is not one soup but four separate things assembled at the last moment: broth, seasoning, noodles cooked in their own water, and toppings laid out in sections. This is the home version: a broth of chicken legs and dried mushrooms, miso whisked in after the pot comes off the heat, eggs marinated two hours in soy sauce. Nothing here is difficult, but nothing goes into one pot either.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Preparation 15 min
- Broth simmering 90 min
- Eggs marinating 120 min
- Assembly 25 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneStart the broth
Halve the onion and lay it cut side down in a dry pan for 4 minutes, until deeply charred. Bring the chicken, water, mushrooms, charred onion, garlic, ginger and carrot to the boil, skim, and simmer 90 minutes on the lowest heat, so the surface barely trembles.
Ingredients: 600 g chicken legs · 2000 ml water · 15 g dried mushrooms · 1 pcs onion · 4 cloves garlic · 30 g fresh ginger · 1 pcs carrot
TipThe charred onion is not decoration: the sugars on the burnt face give the broth colour and a sweetness meat alone cannot. And the broth must not boil — a rolling boil emulsifies the fat and leaves the soup cloudy and greasy in the mouth.
A barely trembling surface, ninety minutesBoil the eggs for six minutes
Lower room-temperature eggs into boiling water and cook for exactly 6 minutes. Move them straight into iced water for 5 minutes and peel. The white is set, the yolk thick but still liquid in the centre.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 4 tbsp soy sauce · 4 tbsp water · 1 tsp sugar
TipA cold egg straight from the fridge needs 7 minutes and cracks more often. The six minutes run from the moment the egg enters the boiling water, not from when it returns to the boil.
Six minutes, then straight into iceMarinate the eggs
Mix the soy sauce, water and sugar in a small jar, add the peeled eggs and refrigerate 2 hours (overnight is better). Turn them once, or lay a piece of paper towel on top so the marinade reaches the whole surface.
TipLonger than a day is counterproductive: salt reaches the yolk and turns it rubbery. The marinade can be used a second time within two days.
Two hours in the fridge, eggs turnedPrepare the toppings
Cut the Chinese cabbage into 1 cm ribbons, slice the spring onion thinly, drain the corn, cut the nori into rectangles with scissors. Set everything out in small bowls: assembling ramen takes two minutes and leaves no time for chopping.
Ingredients: 320 g ramen noodles · 200 g Chinese cabbage · 150 g tinned sweetcorn · 1 bunch spring onion · 4 pcs nori
Everything cut before you start assemblingSeason the broth off the heat
Strain the broth, pick the meat off the bones and set aside. Measure out 1.4 litres of broth, bring to the boil and take it off the heat. Whisk the miso smooth in a ladleful of the hot broth and only then stir it into the pot. Add the soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp miso paste · 3 tbsp soy sauce · 2 tsp sesame oil · 1 tsp sugar
TipMiso is a fermented product: boiled, it loses much of its aroma and leaves mostly saltiness. Loosening it in a ladle rather than dropping a spoonful into the pot is the simplest way to avoid lumps.
Pot off the heat, miso loosened in a ladleCook the noodles separately
In a second pot bring water to the boil without salt and cook the noodles per the packet, usually 2–3 minutes, half a minute short. Drain and shake them hard to get the water out.
TipNoodles cooked in the soup shed starch and flour into it, and the broth you spent ninety minutes on turns gluey and cloudy. No salt in the water, because the broth is already salty from the miso and soy.
A separate pot, unsalted water, shaken dryBuild the bowls
Put the noodles into warmed bowls and pour the hot broth over. Arrange the toppings in sections on top: the halved egg, cabbage, corn, meat and spring onion, with the nori leaning against the rim. Eat at once, mixing only in the bowl.
Toppings in sections, nori against the rim
Before you start
Broth the day before
Broth made a day ahead is better: after a night in the fridge you can lift the set fat off the top and decide how much goes back. The miso seasoning is always done fresh, just before serving.
Vegetarian
Instead of chicken, 30 g dried mushrooms and a piece of kombu, heated together from cold water for about 20 minutes. Lift the kombu out before the water boils — boiled, it makes the broth bitter and slimy; keep simmering the mushrooms. Miso, ginger and garlic do the rest of the work.
Without ramen noodles
The closest substitutes are thin wheat noodles or Chinese egg noodles. Spaghetti boiled with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda per litre of water turns slippery and springy, much like ramen noodles.
