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The Noodle 100 · make it at home

Shoyu ramen with chicken broth and soy tare

4 hr broth (30 min hands-on), 20 min to serve · 4 bowls

Tokyo's oldest ramen: a clear chicken and pork broth, seasoned in the bowl with a soy tare. Make the broth and tare a day ahead and a bowl takes ten minutes.

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You need

• For the broth: 1.5 kg (3 lb) chicken backs and wings, 500 g (1 lb) pork neck bones, 1 onion halved, 5 cm (2 in) ginger sliced, 4 scallions, 10 g (a 10 cm square) kombu, 4 liters (4 quarts) water
• For the tare: 120 ml (1/2 cup) Japanese soy sauce, 60 ml (1/4 cup) mirin, 2 tbsp sake, 1 tsp sugar, 5 g (a handful) dried bonito flakes
• For the chashu: 600 g (1 1/4 lb) pork belly, rolled and tied; 120 ml (1/2 cup) soy sauce, 120 ml (1/2 cup) mirin, 120 ml (1/2 cup) sake, 2 slices ginger
• 4 portions (about 500 g / 1 lb) fresh ramen noodles
• 4 soft-boiled eggs, marinated overnight in a little of the chashu liquid
• To finish: 2 tbsp chicken fat or lard, sliced scallions, menma (bamboo shoots), nori

How to make it

1. Broth (4 hr): Blanch the bones in boiling water 5 minutes, drain and rinse them clean. Cover with the 4 liters of cold water, bring to just below a simmer and skim. Keep it barely trembling (never boiling, which clouds it) 3 1/2 hours, adding the onion, ginger and scallions for the last hour and the kombu for the last 20 minutes. Strain; you want about 2 liters.
2. Chashu (2 1/2 hr, can overlap): Brown the rolled belly in a heavy pot, add the soy, mirin, sake, ginger and 250 ml (1 cup) water, cover and simmer very low 2 1/2 hours, turning every 30 minutes. Cool in the liquid; chill so it slices cleanly.
3. Tare (10 min): Warm the soy, mirin, sake and sugar to a simmer, take off the heat, add the bonito flakes, steep 10 minutes and strain.
4. Bowls (10 min): Warm 4 bowls with hot water. Put 2 tbsp tare and 1/2 tbsp fat in each. Boil the noodles in a big pot of unsalted water for the time on the pack (usually 1 to 2 minutes). While they cook, bring the broth to a boil and pour 400 ml (1 2/3 cups) into each bowl.
5. Finish (2 min): Drain the noodles hard, fold them into the broth, and top with sliced chashu, a halved egg, menma, scallions and nori. Eat right away, noodles first.

Tips

• Taste the tare in a spoon of broth before you build: a bowl should taste a touch salty on its own, since noodles dilute it.
• Good fresh ramen noodles are sold frozen at Japanese grocers; they beat dried every time.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any shop's recipe.