Tonkotsu Ramen with Chashu Pork

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg pork bones (trotters + neck bones, mixed)
• 500 g pork belly (chashu)
• 2 tbsp shiro miso
• 1 piece kombu (10 cm square)
• 2 sheets nori
• 400 g fresh ramen noodles
• 4 eggs
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 head garlic, halved horizontally
• 60 g fresh ginger, sliced

Tare

• 100 ml soy sauce
• 50 ml mirin
• 1 tbsp sake
• 30 g sugar

Method

The ramen-broth is everything. Blanch the bones first: put them in cold water, bring to the boil, and hold for two minutes. Drain, rinse under cold water, and scrub off any dark scum with your fingers. This is not optional — skipping it leaves a faint iron bitterness that fights every hour of broth-building you do afterwards. Return the cleaned bones to a fresh pot with the garlic, ginger, and kombu. Cover with cold water. Bring to a hard, rolling boil and hold it there. Around hour six, watch the broth turn from clear to opaque white — that is the emulsification starting, fat and collagen breaking into suspension under the agitation. Keep the boil vigorous for twelve hours, topping up as evaporation pulls the level down. The finished broth should coat a spoon and smell intensely porky. Stir in the shiro miso off the heat, then strain and keep hot.

For the chashu-marinade|chashu, roll the pork belly tightly, tie it with kitchen string at 2 cm intervals, and searing|sear it in a dry pan over high heat, rolling to colour every face — around ten minutes total. Deglaze with the tare (see below) and nestle the pork into a tight-fitting pot or deep sauté pan. Pour the remaining tare over, add enough water to half-submerge the roll, and braise at a bare simmer, turning every 30 minutes, for two hours. The chashu is done when a skewer meets no resistance. Rest it in the braising liquid; refrigerate overnight for clean slicing. Reserve the braising liquid as additional tare.

Make the tare first so it is ready for the chashu. Combine soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar in a small saucepan and reduce over medium heat until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon — about eight minutes. It should smell sharp and caramel-edged. Set aside half for the chashu braise; the other half is your bowl seasoning. Soft-boil four eggs (seven minutes in boiling water, shocked in ice water, peeled), and marinate them in the reserved braising liquid for at least four hours, ideally overnight. They will colour to a deep mahogany and taste of soy and umami all the way through.

Cook the noodles in a separate large pot at a full, rolling boil — high water volume matters, the starch needs diluting or the noodles stick. Fresh ramen noodles take 90 seconds. No longer. Drain hard, shaking the colander to remove as much water as possible. Soft noodles in a bowl of broth are not ramen; they are porridge. Noodles that went in tight and came out taut are ramen.

To assemble: spoon 2 tablespoons of tare into the base of each warmed bowl. Ladle the hot broth directly onto the tare and watch it swirl — the salt and umami concentrate is blooming into the broth as it hits. Add the drained noodles. Fan three or four slices of chashu across the top. Halve the marinated eggs and lay them cut-side up. Stand a sheet of nori upright in the broth at the bowl's edge — it will soften at the base while the top stays crisp, giving you two textures in one piece. Scatter spring onions. Eat within ninety seconds. The noodles are already softening.