I learned from my mother to create menus for each week before I go shopping; it saves you money and never leaves you sitting in the car on your way home "what the crap am I going to make for dinner!?" When I'm having menu-writer's-block I turn to my very small collection of cookbooks for inspiration.
One of my favorite cookbooks
EVAR is
The Japanese Kitchen by
Hiroko Shimbo. She's basically the Julia Child of Japanese cuisine. Out of 250 recipes, none that I have tried has been bad. I love her so. The book is full of helpful illustrations, because some of the techniques are not used by your typical American home cook. And (thankfully) there isn't a single glossy photo. Those dang glossy cookbooks seem to fall apart if you breathe on them too hard.
ANYWAY, I was flipping through the
Shimbo book and found a recipe for
ramen broth, which I immediately knew I had to try. I have altered it a little (my love doesn't eat pork), but the recipe is essentially the same.
For those of you who love Vietnamese food (hi, Mommy!), this broth is quite similar to the broth used for
Pho.
Ingredients:
2 lb beef soup bones (found in the frozen meat section of the grocery store, conveniently in a 2 lb bag) or pork knuckle bones, cracked by the butcher
2 lb chicken thighs, with all the skin and bones and whatnot
1 small onion, quartered
1/2 head of garlic, cut across the cloves to expose all of their deliciousness
the green part of a leek (RINSE WELL)
1 oz ginger, an inch or two square (depending on how much you like ginger), sliced, with skin
10 oz
chukasoba a.k.a "
Japanese curly noodles" or a couple
ramen packages without the powder.
Put the meat bits into a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a hard boil and cook for one minute.
Lots of yucky stuff will float to the top, but we'll throw that away. Drain the meat and rinse off all the aforementioned yuck.
This is the yuck.*Aside: if you are squeamish about raw meat, this may not be the recipe for you. When I was knuckle deep in bone marrow while rinsing the beef bones when I realized something. After months of working up the guts (no pun intended) to work with meat, my squeamishness has been cured. End aside*
Return to the pot or stick in your trusty slow cooker with all the aromatics. Simmer on low (high in the slow cooker) for seven hours. You heard me. This is another recipe for people with patience (i.e. people who are not me)
These are the tasty bitsBoil up your
chukasoba according to the package directions, and rinse well with cold water until they are no longer starchy and slimy. Divide into bowls, pour over as much broth as you want, and garnish with anything you want. A little scrambled egg, some meat, or cold vegetables would be great. I went for fresh cilantro with some water chestnuts. Oh,
lordy, how I love water chestnuts. I found it also needed a little
tamari or soy sauce for extra salt and flavor.
Chicken broth - 2 cups
Cut the leek to separate the white part of the stalk from the leafy part. Dice the white part. Mince ginger. Chop up half the amount of each type of onion. Add brown sugar, a little bit of salt and pepper, soy sauce, rice vinegar. Mix all these with the meat in a bowl.
Chop up the green part of the leek. Thinly slice the rest of the onion. Set that, the second half of the green onion (chopped) and the leek aside.
Dollop out the meat mixture into the wrappers. Dip your fingers in water to seal up the edges as you pinch them together. Don't overstuff or they'll explode.
Heat up the chicken broth (or vegetable or beef) to near boiling, then pop in the wontons. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add in all your set-aside veggies. Cook for another 10 minutes, until the wontons get floaty and soft looking. Right before serving add a tiny dash of sesame oil for an awesome smell.
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