Ramen and cooking experiments...
Sooo... long time no post.^^;;
In any case, Mall nearby had a promotion: pre-packaged ramen from famous ramen places all over Japan. Now I'm a tonkotsu fanatic... not that fond of other soup bases like miso, shio, shouyu... and though they had stuff like tonkotsu-shouyu, chicken and seafood based soups. Yeah, most of our purchases were tonkotsu (one light shio for mum since she still finds tonkotsu too salty). Best of all, if kept in the freezer most will keep for 6 months. A good thing since we got 6 boxes (each with 3 to 4 servings each).
Still... ramen without ingredients is just not right... so...
Making Japanese Char Siew
Now char siew (the chinese kind) is easy to get here but not so Japanese Char Siew. Found some instructions on the net and hey! didn't look too bad.
500cc water
50cc mirin
50cc soy sauce
1 tblsp sugar
Mix and braise your pork belly cut after having browned it. Simple.
Problem was that 20 min into the 2 hour simmer, half the liquid was gone and I was a little worried that the pork would burn. Also, despite being smaller than the recipe suggested, my piece of pork belly would not quite be covered in the sauce (even though the pot was not that big) and I had to keep turning it to keep the braising even.
Eventually, I just decided to keep adding water...
Results:
(Am keeping the remaining marinate / sauce to reuse. Tastes like butakakuni sauce... yummy if a little sweet.)
Pic of the ramen pack box:
Completed results:
In any case, Mall nearby had a promotion: pre-packaged ramen from famous ramen places all over Japan. Now I'm a tonkotsu fanatic... not that fond of other soup bases like miso, shio, shouyu... and though they had stuff like tonkotsu-shouyu, chicken and seafood based soups. Yeah, most of our purchases were tonkotsu (one light shio for mum since she still finds tonkotsu too salty). Best of all, if kept in the freezer most will keep for 6 months. A good thing since we got 6 boxes (each with 3 to 4 servings each).
Still... ramen without ingredients is just not right... so...
Making Japanese Char Siew
Now char siew (the chinese kind) is easy to get here but not so Japanese Char Siew. Found some instructions on the net and hey! didn't look too bad.
500cc water
50cc mirin
50cc soy sauce
1 tblsp sugar
Mix and braise your pork belly cut after having browned it. Simple.
Problem was that 20 min into the 2 hour simmer, half the liquid was gone and I was a little worried that the pork would burn. Also, despite being smaller than the recipe suggested, my piece of pork belly would not quite be covered in the sauce (even though the pot was not that big) and I had to keep turning it to keep the braising even.
Eventually, I just decided to keep adding water...
Results:
(Am keeping the remaining marinate / sauce to reuse. Tastes like butakakuni sauce... yummy if a little sweet.)
Pic of the ramen pack box:
Completed results: