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Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks.

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Today we're going to talk about ramen.

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Ramen, the heart blood of any hipster neighborhood.

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Food that's become so incredibly popular around the world in the last, I don't know how many years.

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Did we mention ramen in the cultural appropriation episode?

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I don't think we did, no.

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Because ramen is an example of a positive, I would say, cultural appropriation.

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Because this is like a Chinese soup made Japanese with its own identity.

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To the point that nobody sees it as a Chinese thing because it's not anymore.

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Yeah, totally.

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I also feel like ramen is very open to development and to experimentation inside of the boundaries of what ramen is.

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I feel like there are very fixed parameters that if you fall inside of them and you don't bastardize them completely,

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that you could still call it ramen and very confidently sell it as ramen.

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And nobody's really going to question the authenticity of it.

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No, I agree.

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There are also, I think, things that are not ramen, sold as ramen.

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When I think about ramen, I think about the specific type of broth or a family of broths and a family of noodles.

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At least in my prejudice.

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I don't know if you get to see ramen soups with some strange noodles that you wouldn't see usually in ramen places.

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But for me, that's a noodle soup with Asian ingredients.

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Yeah, definitely.

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I mean, imagine a ramen with like flat rice noodles.

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It's impossible.

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Exactly.

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Well, I remember the first time I went to a ramen place, it was really magical.

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Because it was the first time in a long time that I tried something that had a completely different flavor profile.

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I remember it was a shio ramen, which is basically a chicken stock with dashi, right?

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With like finished with katsuobushi.

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And that on one side, like the taste of the stock.

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And on the other side, the qualities of the noodles.

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These noodles that looks like spaghetti, but it's chewy and elastic.

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And I was completely amazed also that you could play around your soup

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and find new things that were hidden.

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I mean, it's like it's one of my favorite things in the world for sure.

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Yeah, for sure.

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And yeah, you know, it's like I also remember it's like ramen has this infinite quality to it, you know?

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It's so like simple and pure, but there's so much nuance to it, you know?

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Like you were mentioning the sort of like what people call the double soup approach, you know?

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Like where you make two soups and then combine them together.

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For example, you know, in a lot of places that make shio ramen.

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So, I mean, first, before we go into detail, you know, shio ramen is shoyu ramen.

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Shio ramen is seasoned with salt, shio salt.

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And shoyu is seasoned with soy sauce.

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And they're both fairly similar, just that before serving for shoyu ramen,

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you put something called tare in the base, which is a sauce made from soy sauce

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and mirin and kombu and stuff like that.

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But yeah, there's like double soup approaches.

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Like often you make a very clear, intense chicken stock and then you make a very,

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you know, traditional dashi, which is the Japanese broth made with,

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you know, katsuobushi dried bonito flakes and often also niboshi,

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which are the small anchovies, the dried anchovies.

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And then you strain both of those broths and combine them together,

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which makes a really, really complex and very intense soup.

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And it's, yeah, it's a very unique flavor.

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It's a very, very Japanese flavor that's like, is, you can't really find,

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we can definitely not find anywhere around the world.

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It's very, very unique.

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Yeah.

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Also, another thing that I have experienced eating ramen,

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because this place, the first place I went was the old place of Kokoro Ramen in Berlin.

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This place was so magical because it was so little,

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like just like a floor where they built like a bar inside and you would eat direct to the bar

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and everybody was like, it was really crowded.

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You had to wait in line to get in and they would cook just in front of you,

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just like ramen places in Japan.

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And I remember this place, they probably saw their food costs at some point and started,

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I don't know, but Japanese friends of mine, they said they really liked it at the beginning.

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And with time, not so much, I guess like this effort of over-reducing the stock to make it

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more powerful is something that Japanese see or understand better than other kinds of clients.

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So like in general, the ramen I've tried in Europe, they're all watery.

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They could be stronger, the stock, at least in my experience.

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Yeah, it's so crucial.

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And like really, like when you go to Japan and you kind of spend a little bit of time

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in like traditional Japanese cooking, you understand this like approach and this understanding of broth.

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It's like, I think what kind of separates Japanese cooking from other cuisines is that

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it's primarily water-based, you know?

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And one of the strongest identities in dishes in Japanese cooking is dashi.

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If you go to any sort of high-end Japanese kaiseki restaurant, most of the time around

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the year, you'll find a dashi dish that's fully based on the broth, you know?

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And they call it ichiban dashi, you know, the first flush of the dashi,

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the first infusion of the ingredients.

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And it's a really impactful experience, kind of like what you described the first time

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when you had ramen for the first time, because the broth is so concentrated

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without being over-seasoned or anything.

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It's just so fully packed of like its essence.

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And it's piping hot, which is also super, super crucial.

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And you sip it, you eat it, and it just kind of fills you out.

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And this is like such a straw for me.

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It was like one of the most fundamental things,

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like one of the most important things that I discovered about Japanese cooking

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when I was there.

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And that is a little bit difficult to understand for people from the West.

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And when you then eat ramen outside of Japan, that often, like you say,

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it doesn't have the same intensity and often also doesn't have the same temperature,

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which I think is super, super crucial because there's nothing like...

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In Japan, when you get a bowl of soup, it's so piping hot

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that you can barely take the first sip.

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Like it's just off the boil.

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But if it was anything but that, people would send it back, you know,

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because there's nothing compared to this feeling of sipping this broth

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and having this like wave of comfort like flood over you.

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And you just don't get that when the broth is like 80 degrees.

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Do you know this dish?

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I don't remember the name, but it's like a traditional Japanese dish

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where you get baby eels that are alive and they're swimming in the dashi.

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And at the center of the dish, there is like this silken tofu.

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And so they turn the fire on and the eels, because it gets so hot,

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they swim into the tofu in front of the guest who is watching and says,

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oh, and all the eels go into the tofu.

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And that's one of the most intense dishes I've ever seen.

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Yeah, it's like a really fucked up kind of instant gouda cheese.

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Yeah, I've definitely seen that.

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I've not actually eaten it myself and I never saw a restaurant like that

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serve that dish.

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It must be like a really special, maybe like probably like very seasonal thing.

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You know, I mean, like baby eels, they don't come around so often as we know.

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You know, I mean, baby eels are very popular in Spain too.

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So what kinds of ramen do we have?

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We mentioned shoyu shio, tonkotsu is also a classic one.

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And for me, tonkotsu has to be the nearest thing to be in the world.

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Has to be the nearest thing to drink pork juice because it's like so intense.

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Something like you would really want to eat in winter.

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And it usually comes with pork belly, right?

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Yeah, so tonkotsu is really interesting because like you say, it's a pork broth

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and it's very fatty in a way.

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But it's really, really interesting because it's made from pork bones, only pork bones.

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You boil them one time and you pour all the water off so you get rid of all the impurities.

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And then you let it boil, you fill it back up with water and you let it boil for a really,

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really, really long time to get all the like collagen and stuff out of it.

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But then what you do is like afterwards, when you strain it, you cook it down on a hard boil.

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So often when you cook down broth, you want to do it on a low temperature

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so that all the aromatics don't combust into the steam, right?

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But there you boil it down on a hard temperature so that all the fat and this collagen emulsifies

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into the water. And if you don't do that, you could don't get this like thick, creamy texture

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of the broth. So that's really like, that's also a really interesting thing that I've never,

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ever seen in any other sort of like cooking approach around the world.

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And yeah, like you say, you know, the toppings, you know, they're very usually it's like,

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yeah, char siu, which is a Chinese term for roast pork.

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But in Japan, it's usually like shoulder or that's rolled up and you basically make like a

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like a roast, you know, like it's tied up into a roll into a roulade.

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Yeah, no, I remember it's not pork belly. It's just like, yeah, the slices of roast.

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Yeah, I mean, you definitely find pork belly also, but I think that's more of like a modern

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and also like a little bit more of a Western thing. But like usually it's just these like rolls of

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pork belly, it can be neck or anything. And they poach it and then cool it down and then

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slice it thinly. Sometimes even they char grill the slices also. And yeah, what else?

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Pickled bamboo shoots, very, very crucial garnish. And for tonkotsu also very important is the black

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garlic oil, which is a very interesting condiment. Again, something that I've never seen anywhere

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else is where you burn crushed or chopped garlic on a controlled heat until it turns black and it

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flavors the oil and you strain it off. I've tried to make it several times and I've always failed.

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No matter how many YouTube tutorials I watch, I can't get it right. Because burnt garlic is

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horrible. It's absolutely disgusting. It's like inedible. It's super bitter and it has this really

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horrible taste like there's nothing pleasant about it. But if you do it just the right way,

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then you get this really roasty, toasters, caramelized black garlic oil. But me personally,

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I can't figure out how to make it. I personally going back to the bone broth, you were saying

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the times I've done like good ramen with good results at home, I found in this Asian supermarket

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here in San Sebastian that they were selling this. It looked like the joint of a bone, like the

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elbow of a serrano ham. So it wasn't like a ham that was cured, but like a cut that doesn't

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have any value for anything. So I made like a broth with that, kind of like a dashi at the end,

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because I would add kombu at the beginning and katsuobushi at the end. So this was like a really

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quick way to make like a strong porky broth with katsuobushi. So it kind of had like, it is its

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own thing. I don't think it would be classified in any of the classical ramen categories, but I

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think it pulled the trigger. If you could taste it and have like a home ramen experience. I think

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the most difficult thing for making ramen at home is to get good noodles. I remember this place,

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Kokoro Ramen. If you would go there on prep time hours, you would see this Japanese lady making

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noodles with machines that looked exactly like Italian pasta machines, but with the Japanese

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letters on it. So you know, these were like Japanese machines. And yeah, and the key thing

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about this type of noodles, what gives it its chewiness is that they're usually made with a

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specific type of salt, like alkaline salt. It gives them not only the color, but also the elasticity.

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And that's again something I haven't seen nowhere else. I think that's only Japanese as far as I

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know. Yeah, I mean, it comes from China also. They have the same sort of thing where they use

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ashes and stuff to alkaline their noodles. But yeah, I mean, that's definitely, I don't think you can

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call it ramen if it doesn't have those alkaline noodles. Sometimes they're more yellow, sometimes

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they're less yellow. And a lot of times people think it's because there's egg in them, but

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actually it's not the case. It's completely eggless. It's just the result of the oxidization of the

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alkaline salt in contact with the flour. And yeah, most importantly, it's like you said and described,

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it gives it that very satisfying and very distinctive chewiness and bounciness. You know,

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like the noodles really, like you can even stretch them, they bounce back. I think that's super,

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super key. Because there are other like iconic or representative Japanese noodles, like udon

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noodles that are thick as earthworms or soba, which are like with a specific type of flour.

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Yeah, buckwheat. Buckwheat, right. So these ones, and this is again, stuff that I see that it's

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called ramen and like cheap sushi places. They use this kind of noodles and they sell it as ramen,

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which has nothing to do with it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, you know, it's like

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udon noodle and udon like is a completely separate culture with its own thing, like in its own rules

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and all variations and you know, udon restaurants and places, they tie much more into like tempura

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and stuff like that. Also, I would say like udon has a little bit more of like a traditional vibe,

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just as soba. Soba has like a very sort of aesthetic, like minimalist sort of like thing to it

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and ramen is really sort of like more, a little bit more modern and more popular, you know,

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because it's more like you can play around with it more, you know, there's not a lot of...

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Like with udon, you have very clear broths, you know, like kake udon or you have it with,

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you know, Japanese curry, those sorts of things. But you know, with and soba is very, very traditional,

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you know, you either have it in soup or you have it cold on the side with the big sauces. But ramen,

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you know, the cool thing about ramen is that the culture is so vibrant, like there's so many people,

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especially in Japan, but like also in the States and in Europe that really take a certain style

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and then like develop it further, you know, like, I mean, now the last couple of years, there's like

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a style in Japan that's sort of emerged where people were sort of like, oh, you know, like they

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liked the tonkotsu style, but they started making tonkotsu ramen with chicken, right? So only chicken

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and they were doing the same amount and same thing, making the super milky broth with pure chicken

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and just cooking it down and emulsifying it in the same way, getting this like creamy emulsified

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broth. And they, that's why I was saying earlier that like they went to keep it to parameters,

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you know, it's like you saying, oh, you made a dashi with a bone from jamon, you know, like,

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I don't know, in my head, it makes perfect sense. You know, it's like dried, cured umami. I mean,

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jamon is basically pork katsu bushi in a way. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like if you're keeping

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those parameters, you know, you are just kind of contributing to the culture rather than like

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bastardizing something. Yeah, also to put it like in perspective, I read once that ramen is something

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that evolved after World War II from Japanese soldiers that came back from Japan and they saw

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this noodle places in China and they replicated them. So it's something that is just a half a

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century old and it makes sense that it's so free and there aren't ramen Nazis, there probably are,

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there probably are ramen Nazis for sure. Yeah, they definitely are. But like, I feel like also

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it's one of the most exciting things about like food culture in Japan, like foodies in Japan,

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you know, they go, they seek out new style ramens, you know, and it's not like, oh, it's this

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out of the box. It's sort of like, no, it kind of like keeps evolving and keeps moving forward. And

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it's not like foreigners coming in and saying, I'm going to make a pork biryani ramen, you know,

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like, which, you know, it doesn't sound too bad actually. With barbecue sauce and chili con carne.

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Yeah, exactly. But there is a ramen like with with minced beef, right, that you get the beef like,

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like a couple of spoons of like something that looks like chili con carne. You know what that is?

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Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's, it's, it's minced cooked down, I think it's pork, I'm not sure. But

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basically it's kind of spitted off and then afterwards it's mixed together with miso to make

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this like very thick minced miso paste and you get it, they say as a spoonful in your soup and you

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kind of mix it into the broth. Yeah, there's definitely a condiment that exists. And then

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I've heard of people saying something that I think that it's wrong and I've never seen, but I don't

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know what you think is about adding miso to your pork broth or these kind of things. I think there

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is like a miso soup itself and but adding miso like to a ramen broth, it's something I wouldn't do at

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least. Yeah, you know, I don't agree, actually, because I've seen, I've seen it done and it

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definitely works. I can think of a very specific example. There's a very traditional dish from

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Japanese cooking called puta miso, which basically just needs pork miso and it's a sort of soup

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stew. It's made with sliced pork, burdock, like root vegetables, and then it all gets sweated

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off in sesame oil and then you add stock and in the end you add miso. And I've seen that being

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served on udon noodles, which was super delicious, you know, like, yeah, super nice, like thin slices

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of, there's more like a rustic style, but super, super delicious. And there's definitely, there's

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definitely miso ramen, yeah, for sure. Yeah, but I mean, I was talking about the miso pork combination,

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but okay, cool. I didn't knew that one. I think especially, especially in Hokkaido, you know,

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it's like also you have to think of the variation of regions, of climates. Yeah, of climates, you

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know, like the butter ramen in Hokkaido where they put like sweet corn in it and stuff and a

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slob of butter on at the end, you know, that are much thicker and much richer because of the cold

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climate. I mean, yeah, that's the cool thing about it. It's so varied. So, which would you say

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was your favorite that you've ever had? I would say the one I said the first shio ramen I had,

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because it was the most impressive one, was like, what is this? I've never had something like this.

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And I actually brought a lot of people to have that same dish. And it was on and on the same

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reaction. Like, what is this? Yeah, I think it was the first one that I've had also at Kokoro in

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Berlin back then in Akasha, Mark, right? Yeah, exactly. This super small place. Yeah, I remember,

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I think one of my like very favorite ones is from a chain in Japan called Afuri. And they specialize

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in shio ramen and they have one with yuzu, where their broth is flavored with yuzu. So they have a

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yuzu shio ramen. And again, it's just like super pungent, like crystal clear broth with just like

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fresh yuzu flavor. And very, very simple. They put like a little bit of like fresh risu on top and

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like greens and stuff. And I remember that really stand out was also their soy marinated egg, which

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we didn't talk about, which is also really, really important for ramen soups. Oh, yeah, this

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halved egg that you always get with the ramen. Yeah. And then like, it's again, something so

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simple as a soft boiled egg that you marinate in a mixture of, you know, soy and kombu and whatever,

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you know, depending on your recipe. But the way like this was just like, like the texture of the

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yolk after a while becomes just like so waxy and creamy. And the flavor is just like so

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wamy packed that yeah, it's it really made that ramen stand out. It's definitely in my,

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it's my top ramen for sure. Sounds amazing.

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That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing,

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