A bowl of ramen is built, not poured. Every layer has a job and a place in the order, and if you get the order right the bowl tastes like it came from a shop. Here is how we build ours in the kitchen, and how to do the same at home in 10 minutes.
Warm the bowl
Before anything else. A cold bowl pulls the heat out of the broth in seconds, and lukewarm ramen is a sad thing. Boiling water from the kettle, swirl it round, tip it out. Thirty seconds that changes everything.
Aroma oil goes in first
This is the step most people get backwards. The aroma oil, which in our tonkotsu is smoked back fat and garlic, goes into the warm empty bowl before the broth. Then the hot broth is poured over it, and the oil blooms up through the liquid and spreads across the surface. Put it on top at the end and it just sits there in a puddle. In first, broth over: that is the ritual, and it is the difference between a bowl that smells of ramen from across the room and one that doesn't.
Broth, then noodles
Pour the hot broth over the oil. Cook the noodles in a separate pan of plain boiling water, never in the broth, drain them well and lower them in. Lift them once with chopsticks and fold them over so they sit in a neat pile rather than a tangle. Neat noodles eat better. It sounds fussy. It isn't, and you will notice.
Now the toppings, in this order
Chashu. The braised pork belly, or the chicken, or the smoked tofu, laid on one side of the bowl so it warms through in the broth. It goes on first because it is the biggest thing and everything else sits around it.
The egg. A marinated soft-boiled egg, halved, yolk up, on the other side. Ours are cured overnight in soy, in an equilibrium brine, so the white is seasoned all the way through and the yolk is just set. Because the brine is balanced to the egg, it can't over-cure, so they stay perfectly seasoned for up to three days. They come as a pair, one each, and they go in straight from the pack. The broth warms them.
Menma. Seasoned bamboo shoots, a small pile for crunch and a little sweetness.
Kikurage. Dressed wood ear mushroom, which is there for texture, a clean snap against the soft noodle. It doesn't taste of much on its own and it isn't supposed to.
Spring onion. Last, scattered over the top, so it stays bright and sharp. This is what cuts through a rich broth between mouthfuls.
What to leave out
Sweetcorn, butter and a slab of nori all have their place in Japan, but each belongs to a particular bowl, and piling all of them on a tonkotsu is how you end up with soup that tastes of everything and nothing. Fewer toppings, placed with care, is nearly always the better bowl.
If you would like the toppings without the shopping
Every one of our kits comes with its protein and garnishes already in the box, and the extras page has the marinated egg and more chashu for the heartiest of appetites. They are here. Order by Sunday 8pm. Delivered Thursday or Friday.
