Throughout Asia, noodle dishes are one of the most popular to eat and come in varying types of textures, ingredients used, serving, and cooking methods. While each country prides itself on a significant noodle dish, one of the most recognised types of noodles within both the region and internationally is ramen. Ramen is a humble dish of wheat noodles, broth, toppings and is synonymous with Japanese food and culture, developing over the years with the evolution of Japan.
The History of Ramen
Japan’s surrounding countries have strongly influenced its food culture starting from as early as 300BC. The Chinese have influenced a diet of rice and noodles within the Japanese culture and the introduction of Buddhism from Korea eventuated into a 1200 year ban on beef products, equipping the country to master the art of sushi and be world-renowned for its high-quality seafood.
The treaty of peace and amity in 1854 forced Japan to open its ports to American trade, ushering in a plethora of immigrants and foreign workers into the country. Yokohama, once a tiny fishing village, boomed because of the treaty and grew immensely with the rise of Industrialisation in 1868.
The first Chinese restaurant opened in Yokohama in 1870 and as Japan’s economy grew, many more Chinese students and workers migrated and spread around the country. Rairaiken , a restaurant in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, opened in 1910
In the Asakusa district of Tokyo, a restaurant run by Chinese workers opened in 1910 and served a dish called Shina Soba (Chinese Soba). This dish consisted of broth, noodles, pork, fishcake and nori, closely resembling ramen of what we know of today.
The word ramen relates to the actual noodles, transcribed into Japanese from the Chinese word ‘la mian’, meaning pulled noodle.
La mian noodles are from Lanzhou, made from wheat flour that is pulled, folded and stretched until the correct thickness is achieved.
Shina Soba / Credit: fukuokanow.com
What are the main ingredients in ramen?
Despite hiding behind a façade of a humble bowl of soupy noodles, the elements of ramen are complex, time-consuming and require extreme perfection to achieve a delicious, balanced dish. Those elements comprise broth, tare, noodles and toppings.
Broth
Traditionally ramen is made with a pork broth which requires many hours of simmering pork bones to extract collagen, fat and flavour. The combination of both pork and chicken broth is also popular and in modern style ramen, crab, prawn and lobster stock is also used.Tare
The flavour of ramen can be credited to tare, the seasoning element of the broth containing glutamate through umami rich foods or the addition of monosodium glutamate. Dashi, made with kombu (kelp), katsuboshi (smoked and dried bonito flakes) OR niboshi (anchovy), is also used in the tare to add a full-flavoured layer of umami.Shio (salt), Shoyu (soy sauce) and Miso (fermented bean paste) are the building blocks on which the three types of tare is built. Other ingredients can be simmered with these base flavours such as sake, ginger, mirin, vinegar, garlic or green onions. Shio tare results in a clean and pure taste, Shoyu adds sweetness and colour while miso provides an earthy taste with an opaque appearance.
Noodles
Ramen noodles come in a variety of textures and shapes and are made simply from wheat flour, salt, water and alkalized mineral water also known as kansui. Kansui is the essential ingredient in the noodle allowing them to have a bouncy texture and egg-like flavour. The colour and texture depends on how much kansui has been added to the dough and the noodles can be flat, wavy, curly, thick or thin.Toppings
Toppings of ramen vary and can include chashu (grilled braised pork belly), ajitsuke tamago (marinated egg), Naruto (fish cakes), Nori (seaweed paper), bean sprouts, corn, menma (fermented bamboo shoots), black fungus, corn, spicy miso and many more.
Is ramen difficult to make?
The Japanese cuisine and culture is a very traditional and disciplined one. It takes many years to become a master at just one element let alone one dish.
I did, however, try to make a ramen from scratch, the result wasn’t too bad, but it was a lot of work.
Feel free to try it yourself and let me know how it went.