Hey guys. This week we're taking a
departure from basic technique and heading into some more advanced
territory. Homemade tonkotsu ramen... less an essential skill, and more a right of
passage for the modern home-cook. Sure, it takes to some odd days to make and sure
you could burn your hands on the alkaline salt and sure, getting every
elements just right is a constant barrage of challenges. But, with that
first steamy slurp comes a superlative sense of accomplishment. Not to mention a truly delicious dinner. Let's get down to basics.... 'Basics with Babish' and the all-new
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Squarespace. Alright folks so far in previous episodes we've covered how to
make tonkotsu ramen broth from scratch by boiling pork bones and aromatics for
12 hours and we've covered how to make chashu pork belly in our sous vide or at
least we've gotten it started. You can find links to these techniques in this
video's description let's get that stuff out of the way we can soldier on to our
remaining soup supplements. Starting with some marinated soft-boiled eggs I have
here some soft-boiled eggs which we have soft-boiled shocked in an ice bath and
peeled and now we're gonna make a super simple marinade of equal parts soy sauce
and mirin which is a super flavorful Japanese cooking wine.Then for each part
soy sauce and mirin we're going to add about four parts water then we're look
for a rubber spatula or spoon and realize that we had the best mixing tool
in our hand the whole time gently add the eggs and they're gonna float but
just make sure that there's enough liquid in the bowl to theoretically
cover them I'm going to add a little bit of extra soy sauce and mirin to make
sure that they're well covered and then we're gonna put them in the fridge
agitating them after about two hours refrigerating them for a minimum of four
and up to 24. Then, it's on to the business of making tare an ultra
flavorful umami packed soup-base. We're starting by heating a good squirt of
vegetable oil over medium-high heat and adding a smattering of dried anchovies
and letting these guys really soak up the heat for three or four minutes we
want to get them good and seared and we want a good layer of fond on the bottom
of the pot. This means letting them sit and stick so take a thematically
inappropriate sip from a martini and let them sit on the bottom of the pot until
some nice brown stuff forms once it does it's time to deglaze using some soy
sauce. We're gonna add maybe half a cup to it you can now see was a spitting
hot pan where I let that chill the hell out before we add a little bit more soy
sauce because we don't feel like we added enough, and then an equal part of mirin give that a stir get it nice and hot before
adding some bonito dried fish flake I know this mixture sounding pretty fishy
but really it's just an umami bomb that's gonna help set off our tonkatsu
broth. You can see that I've taken it off the heat because I want that bonito to
sort of steep like a fish tea, and then I'm gonna add a couple tablespoons of saké,
put that back on the heat let the alcohol boil off, strain, and there we go
we've made tare. You can refrigerate this until ready to use because now it's time
for the most perilous part of the process: making homemade ramen noodles. The first step here is to make some alkaline salt which we're going to make
by baking baking soda- yes that's what I meant to say- at 250 degrees Fahrenheit
for one hour. This changes the pH balance of our
baking soda and turns it into a mild skin irritant, so make sure not to touch
it, we're combining 2 teaspoons of our baked soda with four ounces plus two
tablespoons of water making sure to dissolve completely. Then into a large
bowl we are depositing 240 grams of all-purpose flour to which we are adding
our alkaline water mixture and combining with a wooden, or other, spoon we want a
shaggy but cohesive ball of dough and as you can see this is a little bit too dry
so I'm gonna add a little bit of extra water think pasta dough in terms of
consistency. Once it comes together into a cohesive but not sticky ball of dough
we're going to Pat it into a disk, dust it with bread flour, and cover letting
rest for one half of one hour kind of just like pasta dough take this time to
go clean up your apron because you've made a mess of yourself and then once
half an hour has elapsed extract the dough from the bowl and then it's time
to start rolling out we're gonna start by performing a single rudimentary
lamination that is lightly dusted with flour rolling out and folding into
thirds like a letter, then into thirds again.. so not quite like a letter but hey,
I'm not gonna judge you for how you fold your letters. We're rolling this out just
a little bit wrapping in plastic wrap and letting rest again for another half
hour. We're just letting the gluten relax before we break out the big guns, that's
right. It's time to bust out your shiny new stand mixer pasta roller, you know
that when you got for Christmas. I think that's the only way you can actually get
one of these as a Christmas or wedding gift. Anyway, we're gonna give this guy
one final lamination before rolling and cutting them up so let's give it one
pass on our roller widest setting. Folding into thirds like a you-know-what
rotating 90 degrees and beginning to roll out even thinner until we're at
about a two or three on our pasta press if the edges are too ragged and it's
coming apart just go ahead and laminate it a few more times. This is getting a
little bit too long for individual noodles so I'm gonna give this a simple
chopp in half as you can see we're also giving this an extra dusting of
bread flour before the most satisfying part of our day running this through the
noodle cutter. Dust with even more bread flour and twist into little ramen nests
on a bread flour dusted rimmed baking sheet. At this point these can be
refrigerated or frozen I'm just gonna cover mine with plastic wrap and
refrigerate because it's almost ramen time. Picking up from where we left off
in the sous-vide episode are chashu pork belly is coming out the water bath and
onto a rack and a rimmed baking sheet that we are then going to place round
side facing the sky under a broiler until it emerges deeply browned and
crisp excuse me while I stare at this in awe for a moment, and then we're gonna
snip up the string and slice this guy into slices. Now ideally you want to
chill this overnight so you can get it nice and firm, and cut super thin slices.
But, I'm really hungry so into some boiling water go the ramen noodles we're
not letting those cook for more than three minutes and I'm gonna test for
doneness after about 90 seconds into the bottom of a warmed noodle bowl goes a
few tablespoons of our tar a followed by a few ladlefuls of steaming hot broth
followed by our freshly cooked and rigorously shook noodles. Dump those guys
into the broth, there we go. and now it's time to get all dressed up
with nowhere to go into the back of the bowl goes one to two slices of our
chashu pork on the side goes a single sheet of nori or, dried seaweed. Then
we're slicing in half one of our beautifully soft-boiled marinated eggs
placing that on to the other side, handful of scallions optionally and I
like a few pieces of spicy Menma or fermented bamboo shoots and there you
have it after two days of what I think you will agree was completely worth it
effort, a steaming bowl of perfection. You've come a long way from that 39
cents a packaged crapy you steeped in college that I admittedly still eat
from time to time. So grab some chopsticks, dig in, and prepare to have
your mind blow and don't forget to loudly proudly
slurp your noodles to not do so is rude to the chef which is you... and really
isn't loving yourself the most important technique that I could teach you? So I
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Hey /u/Oliverbabish
Do you bake 'baking powder' or 'baking soda'. I think you said to bake BP, but then dont touch the baked BS.
But is there a ramen that doesnt involve a souvied for us poor folks?
"Advanced" is an understatement hahaha I wonder if we'll get an easy one after this like soup or something!
Ya know, this is probably my favorite Basics episode thus far, but it's also the epitome of "To cook along with Babish, you too must buy a 3000 dollar kitchen."
Like, I'm not buying a souvied, or a pasta press, or anything like that... this kind of budget just isn't reasonable. This was a really special episode and I know he's not implying these are necessary parts of the regular cooking process, but it makes me want the Babish In a Budget idea to catch steam way more.
The link to the broth video is wrong anyone have the real link?
As someone who used to work in a ramen shop, I was super hype for this ep. You make soy braised eggs and chashu different than I'm used to, but damn you're right. The taste is SO satisfying.
Yo /u/OliverBabish, it sounds like you're saying "ton-kaht-su" which is a completely different dish to tonkotsu. Japanese vowels always make the same sound, so the O in "ton" should be identical to the O in "kot". Tonkatsu is basically pork schnitzel.
Perfect. I was wondering what to make for my birthday this weekend and now I have my answer.
Isn’t this the second time in two basics episode that he’s switched terms mid explanation of the video.
The first one being the cleaning episode where he said to cover the pan with vegetable oil and then changed it to olive oil during the second coating.