Pork Boneless in Fukuoka.
I attempted the almost impossible.
I made ramen for my wife's family.
It’s never been done because … why? It’s such a ridiculous premise. This trip though, due to my bread delivery body clock, I’m up 5.30am every morning.
‘Why’ became ‘why not’.
The obstacle is I’ve never seen any wet markets. Sure there’s the then Tsukiji / now Toyusu market, but they're all fish-focused. Maybe the Ueno one? But that’s in *checks map* Tokyo.
Supermarkets, and farmer’s markets even, have nicely wrapped and packaged peaches, melons, apples, the fancy bento, and individually dressed rice crackers.
There's nowhere for me to buy a whole chicken, or chicken feet, something I take for granted in Melbourne.
But hey, around the corner, twelve thousand types of fish.
Two hundred types of anchovies, bonito flakes, konbu, and soy sauces.
Last trip, Chika's mum pointed to a butcher shop, which I thought was the holy grail. I walked in on Friday, only to find that it was no different from a normal supermarket. Everything was categorised by parts and chopped up - ready for curry, for deep frying, for hotpot, for meatballs.
I also couldn't buy a full slab of pork belly to roll and tie with strings. They were cut and portioned for kakuni, or for barbecue, or hotpot. I couldn't see pork neck, pork knuckles, pork shoulders, pork bones either.
Not having any tonkotsu to make tonkotsu, the menu pivoted to a soy sauce-based clear chicken broth ramen.
“Chicken carcasses, we have some, how many do you want?” The guy said.
“All of it,” I said, “also, give me two packs of wings.”
He told us that chicken feet etc. are all reserved for commercial use. There's a minimum order of 5kg, pre-orders only.
Dude, the guys at Vicmart would probably pay me to take 5kg at 4.30pm on a Sunday.
24 hours to go.
I soaked konbu with soy sauce, mirin, sake, and anchovy in a container, in the fridge.
12 hours to go.
I pressure-cooked a slab of pork belly for 40 minutes with a dash of soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. While waiting for release, I made ramen eggs while boiling another pot of soy sauce, sugar, mirin. I marinated the eggs and the pork belly with the mixture. Both in the fridge. Save the pork broth to make stock.
3 hours to go.
I noticed how much smaller the chicken carcasses are compared to Australia. Almost quail-like, but maybe 20% larger. I chucked everything including the wings into the pork broth the day before and as it come to boil, observed how much scum was forming. It was ridiculously gritty and fat, as if I had a whole chicken back in Melbourne. I skimmed the scum and closed the lid. Timer was set to 45 minutes after pressurised.
Tomatoes in the oven toaster - 150°C
Spring onion oil - chopped up a bunch of scallions, into a pan of cold oil, cook until brown, strain. Saved the crispy bits.
Remember the container of liquid in the fridge? Warmed up in another pot, removed konbu before running boil, added two handfuls of bonito flakes, heat off, waited 10 minutes, strained back into container.
That’s the soy sauce tare.
2 hours to go.
I opened the lid of the stock pot, added another piece of konbu, ginger, garlic, carrot, and onion, turned the heat to the smallest, timer set for another 45 minutes.
In the meantime, stir-fried bean sprouts with lard. I don't know what they do with the bean sprouts - no hairy beans aside, after 3 minutes of high-heat stir-frying, they were still plump, crisp, holding shape.
I cut the charsiu. The fat had solidified in the fridge overnight, making it easy to slice.
Prep the eggs, tomato, scallions.
30 minutes to go.
I take 2ml of the tare, and add 20ml of chicken stock to taste. Chicken, amino acid, glutamate, sweetness. Good to go.
The broth made with only the carcasses was cleaner, and more flavourful than my full chicken ones in Melbourne.
I strained the stock into a pot. Added water to the original pot to make 'second stock'.
Boiled another pot of water, ready for noodles.
Unfortunately, I couldn't make my noodles from scratch. Instead I trusted the fresh packs from the supermarket. They're thin, translucent, made in Hokkaido - perfect for shoyu-based ramen.
20 minutes to go.
I mixed 5ml of spring onion oil and 25ml of tare.
Dropped a serving of noodles in the pot, set timer to 60s.
15s remaining, added the stock to the bowl.
Timer off, noodles drained, into the bowl, mix well.
Added charsiu, tomato, beansprouts, egg, crispy spring onion bits, a slice of sea weed.
Times up.
Repeat the last step five more times.
Everyone, apart from my own daughter finished their bowl, down to the last drop. (At some point we'll have to run that DNA test.)
It was the only best bowl of chicken ramen I've made in Japan.
Clean, focused, and extremely well-balanced.
Cue everyone cheering Ha-bee- sugoi!
It's easy for me to look at my ramen and think it’s ‘my’ ramen.
But the chicken, the noodle, the beansprouts, aromatic, pork belly, noodles, anchovies, kelp, bonito, soy sauce were all flawless to start with.
I hate the word 'terroir'. In fact, I've written and deleted three paragraphs before this sentence on 'tearwaaaah'.
Because our soil is nicer, the air cleaner, the produce sweeter, the people friendlier, the animals happier, the food tech more advanced...
It's like 'MSG' - one is a lie to prevent you from eating good food; the other to seduce, exclude, and extort you for good food.
The reason Japan has marbled beef, juicy fruits, colourful drinks, is that they are operating under the pretense that everyone is giving their absolute 100% in life.
I am Kindaichi the detective, telling you the hint is in the lack of whole chicken in the supermarkets.
Don't you have work to do?
Don't you have kids to look after?
Boss to entertain?
Tax to pay?
Economy to stimulate?
You don't have time, to debone a chicken.
To make ramen from scratch.
Let us do that for you.
Shouldn’t you also give 100% to be Japanese?
At Fukuoka, I don't have many choices (due to the language barrier and access) but whatever is available is processed and engineered to perfection.
Melbourne? I have more control and all the freedom I want, but everything takes a lot of time and effort, and everyone expects everyone to chill. If you have high expectations, you’ll have high blood pressure.
Which do you prefer?
Am I still taking about ramen?
Wait, did I forget something?
The ‘second stock’.
I used that the next day to make takigomi rice.