Preparation : chicken carcass

Chicken bone (or carcass) is often used for Ramen soup, as it gives soup a elegant and robust flavor which majority of people (may) like. However there are some tips of preparation. It's not so difficult but without those processes extraction of its Umami (explained in a previous post) might not go well.

Even after the same procedures, final taste can vary depending on type and age of chicken. If you're professional-oriented and would like make an investigations, it would be fun to compare the results.

1 Put it into COLD water, for 1 hour

Let the blood out during this time. Some say that Umami of chicken escapes with blood. I am personally not a supporter of the theory, but if you are you can skip this part.

2 Put it into BOILING water, for 1-2 minutes

The main aim of this step is to let scum out of it. If the whole body surface got white, take them out. Don't boil them too long, as chicken's good flavor will escape. The water left is to be discarded.

3 Clean and take its organs away with water, but quickly

Organs contain peculiar smell, and they often make the taste of soup vague, less sharp. Therefore most Ramen restaurant currently do this. If you prefer, you can break the bones at this step.

This movie includes the steps above

Basically when you use chicken carcass, this steps will do!

Soup of Ramen: Basic recipe of Chicken and Pork bones

Soup.
When it comes to whole taste of Ramen, I can't emphasize enough how important soup is.

What is role of soup of Ramen?

Main function of Ramen soup is to give the whole flavor. It is dominant and decisive、trunk of Ramen. I would say... around 70-80 % of good taste of Ramen is dependent on its soup. (some types of Ramen is served without soup, though)
Soup includes Umami from several ingredients, and like an artwork there is no only answer. If you feel the soup is tasty it surely has Umami. I don't go deep into its mechanism, but will gradually explain in posts.
Usually served with sauce which adds salinity and other flavors, not directly itself.

How to make basic Ramen soup?

It greatly depends on what you want for the soup. Some like chicken-carcass  based soup, others like pork-born based one, and also, though not majority, vegetable-based.

Although every Ramen bar, seemingly, has created combination of ingredients for soup and it is often secret, there is more or less basic recipe for this era.

Combination of chicken-bone, porn-bone, and veges

Availability of bones may vary depending on your country or region, I postulate those below are not very hard to obtain. Just chicken carcass is ok as well, however pork bones may render the soup more powerful flavor.

Strictly speaking, it is not bone of each animal itself that makes soup tasteful, but meat around it and marrow inside. Extracting the Umami is the core.

However merely animal bones based soup stinks. So, veges are often used to reduce the smell of "beast". Especially if you are pork bone fan, better to use veges. (Some Ramen bar don't use veges as they think it is original flavor of animals and it should not be killed)

Recipe: basic Ramen soup

(for 4 people)

Chicken carcass  2 (around 1kg)

Pork spine (or pork leg bone) 500g-1kg

Leek (green part) 50g-100g
Ginger 10g
Garlic 10g
Onion 1-2

preparation 

1 Put chickens into boiling water. If its surface become white after 1-2 minutes, it's okay. Remove organs inside body.Rinse them a bit with water.

2 Put pork bones into boiling water. Spine for 4-5 minutes, legs 10-15 minutes. Rinse them a bit with water. If possible, legs should be broken, with hammer or sth, as marrows will spread quickly and effectively.

Boiling the ingredients

3 Put chicken and pork into cold water (absolutely cold water, not hot!!) and start boiling stockpot.

4 After it got boiling, scums will appear on the surface. It will disappear after a while but better to remove them. Continue to boil.

5 As scums is gone, put veges into it. At this point, if you want creamy and milky soup, continue to boil it with high fire level. If you would like more transparent soup in comparison, set fire level low. If fire level is high, keep an eye on the water level, as it can evaporate faster. For milky soup, using a tool to break bones (wooden bar or sth substitution) may be quicker to finish.

6 2 or 3 hours of boiling is ok for this amount of soup. Check it and if you feel flavor of them it is done.

It is just one suggestion of basic of basic. You can arrange according to your favorite taste and ingredients.

Ramen general, and about this blog

If you are reading this, I suppose you are interested in Ramen, especially its recipe.

Firstly, as for Ramen recipe, I need to declare that there is no answer that everybody would agree with (unlike 1 + 1 = 2). Each individual has his/her own favorite taste and it is not the same. However it is possible and fun to try to find better taste.

In this blog I, as a Ramen chef and a seeker of ultimate Ramen, would like to share recipes with Ramen lovers from many countries.

I postulate that most readers are with basic knowledge about Ramen, so if you are curious about "what is Ramen?", the common definition, take a look at here for now.

Thanks for visiting!

P.S. I would like you to ignore or forgive grammatical mistakes among my English sentences. As a non-native English user I am making efforts :)