A Kitchen In Brooklyn: ramen

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Sasha's Kitchen: Homemade Shoyu-Chicken Ramen

Ramen is the new cupcake. Well maybe not, but at least in New York, gourmet ramen noodle joints are one of the biggest food trends to hit the city, from Chuko in Brooklyn to Momofuku Noodle Bar. I've heard great things about Ippudo as well. I thought I'd give homemade ramen a try. Initially I considered using David Chang's recipe from Momofuku noodle bar, but I don't cook with pork at home. I've had a great soy broth and also a great miso broth at Chuko, so I figured I could try devising my own soy-chicken based ramen, or Shoyu, as the Japanese refer to the soy flavor. I came up with my own recipe that was delicious and had a great Japanese flavor. I love serving the ramen with the hard boiled (or soft boiled if you prefer) eggs as well. Yum! Instead of serving in regular soup bowls, since I don't have Japanese ramen bowls, I used large cappuccino mugs from Anthropologie - so cute!

Sasha's Shoyu-Chicken Ramen
1 whole chicken, cut up, about four pounds
1/2 cup of low sodium soy sauce
1 large onion, cut into quarters
4 garlic cloves
4 quarts of water
four small pieces of kombu
2 oz fresh ginger, peeled
soba, lo mein or ramen noodles
3 large soft boiled eggs, soaked for an hour in equal parts soy sauce and mirin
three diced scallions

In a large stockpot, combine the water, chicken, onion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and kombu. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and simmer, partially covered for two hours to allow the broth to get a delicious flavor, just like if you were making chicken stock for matzo ball soup. The when the two hours are up, strain the broth and reserve it of course. Prior to simmering, but after boiling, you'll want to skim the chicken fat from the top of the broth so the end result will be clear. Shred some of the chicken for serving in the ramen soup.

Boil the noodles according to package instructions and add to the broth and chicken. Hard boil three eggs and soak for an hour in a mixture of mirin and soy sauce, and chop up some scallions for serving. Optional - add some corn or steamed spinach.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Sasha's Kitchen: Restaurant review - Chuko

Noodles bars are all the craze here in New York (and probably elsewhere) right now. The most famous is Momofuku Noodle Bar, which draws crowds for its noodles as well as its famous fried chicken here in Manhattan. Recently the sou chef from Morimoto opened a new noodle bar right here in Brooklyn - on Vanderbilt in Prospect Heights, called Chuko. Opened by Jamison Blankenship and David Coon, Chuko's ramen wasn't the only delight. We had a great meal with several delicious appetizers, including some salt and pepper fried chicken. The ramen is great as the restaurant offers a variety of broths to mix with the noodles (we tried both soy and miso broths with chicken). Needless to say we were impressed. Last but not least, dessert of a chocolate macaron sandwich was a creative and tasty twist. Below were the highlight of our meal.