Pork Bone (Tonkotsu) Ramen

I was woefully ignorant on the realities of ramen before coming to graduate school. I honestly thought that when you asked for ramen, Oodles of Noodles and Top Ramen were what you'd get. So when Maki made "fresh" ramen (y'know, with non-dried noodles and a liquid broth concentrate) and then waxed eloquent about the stuff you can get  in restaurants, it was a delicious, delicious revelation, as was the flavor - pork bone. Tucson not exactly being a destination for Japanese cuisine, there were no restaurants that served tonkotsu ramen. And all of the recipes we could turn up made it sound like a real project to make yourself - which of course means we decided it had to be done.

7 recipes, 2 grocery stores, every pot in both of our kitchens, and a claw hammer

     If you're going to spend the better part of a day making something, you might as well go whole hog (snerk). We decided we'd make everything ourselves - stock, noodles, toppings and all. Maki found a likely-looking Japanese site that went into the process in great detail, (the recipes, however, were somewhat less detailed) and sent me Google translations of the pages to giggle over (flurry of leek!). We decided on our approach and ingredients list, and set aside a Saturday for the process.I brought my brew pot, both stock pots, a couple of sharp knives, and my pasta machine. Maki started soaking mushrooms, scallops and kombu seaweed for the soy stock. We then headed to 17th Street Market for some pork shoulder bones we'd reserved. After some pondering over what other meaty bones best represented pork "knuckle" (still not sure what that actually is), we also picked up a package of fresh hocks, along with two pork bellies - one for the roast pork topping and one for lunch. Other ingredients were picked up either there or at Safeway - besides the pork, the only ingredients to require a specialty store were the anchovies and seaweed for the soy stock. 
Pork bone ramen == tragedy for porcine-kind
     Since the pork stock had the longest cooking time, we started it first. Sadly, it wasn't until we'd already picked up the bones that we noticed they were supposed to be broken to expose the marrow. It would have been much more convenient - and much less serial killer - had we asked the butcher to chop them for us, but instead, we were reduced to rummaging through the tools to find something that might crack the bones. We ultimately settled on the clawed end of a hammer, whereupon we discovered that it's actually pretty challenging to crack bone. Also, as content as I am with my carnivorous ways, I have to admit to a little...queasiness...when blood would well up after a particularly good crack to the shoulder blade. Also, there was backscatter.
     Psycho bone attacking accomplished, we chucked the bones in the brewpot, covered them with water, and boiled for 45 minutes to get rid of the dirty foam from the blood. We poured off the water, rinsed the bones, then covered them with water again, adding in the other stock ingredients. In an attempt to make the stock easier to strain, we added most of the aromatics in a mesh bag. In retrospect, I'm not sure that did much except make the stock more difficult to stir, so I probably wouldn't do so again. We threw in the pork bellies, too - one trussed up like a jelly roll, the other just flat.
Pork bone ramen also == sad day for chickens and marine life
     Meanwhile, though, while the pork was doing its initial boil, we got started on the chicken stock. We'd gotten the butcher to remove the breast meat from a chicken, then chop up the rest of the carcass into two-inch pieces. The chicken stock was a fairly straightforward process - like making any other kind of chicken stock, except with ginger, soy sauce and an apple. We let it simmer for several hours, adding more aromatic stuff several hours in. Once it tasted nice and chickeny, we strained it and put it in the fridge to await the eating, still probably 6 hours away.
     It would be tempting to have skipped the soy stock. It required the most finicky ingredients and the overnight soaking. According to the recipe online, the final recipe used relatively little of this stock compared to the other two. Oh, but it would have been such a mistake to skip it! This stuff is seriously flavorful and worth having around to add to all sorts of recipes. Besides, once everything is obtained, it's not hard to make, and when else are you ever going to have the chance to strain out dozens of floating fish eyes from something you intend to eat?
     We sauteed the anchovies until they took on some color (and let off quite a bit of aroma), then dumped in the seaweed, mushrooms and scallops (and their liquid). We brought all of this to not quite a boil over low-ish heat. The smell was not promising. It had a definite bilgewater aroma. I had my doubts, but boy was I wrong - it was savory, salty and altogether good. Out with the seaweed, in with what Maki may claim was 2 cups of bonito flakes but I'm fairly sure was more like 4, more boiling, some soy sauce and mirin, and some straining, and the soy stock was done. I still think it smells like the underside of a boat, but I'll eat it anytime.

Lunch, topping-fixing, and the long boil of the pork stock

     So, two out of three stocks done, and the pork stock still hours away from being finished (it smelled good, and tasted promising, but weak), we turned to lunch. By this time, the pork bellies had been in the stock for several hours. We soaked the one destined for the ramen in soy sauce, and subjected the other one to a hot skillet (see Maki poking it with tongs and trying valiantly to avoid being burned by copious amounts of sizzling pork fat). We lied to ourselves that spinach and rice made it "healthy," a lie I will happily tell myself if it means I get to eat sweet-salty chunks of greasy pork.
On the difference between Japanese and US eggs
     Most of the toppings for our ramen were last-minute affairs, but the eggs were supposed to spend some time in the soy sauce with the pork belly. Elsewhere on the site with our base recipes, Maki found the page where the guy spent an inordinate amount of time determining the perfect method for making soft-boiled eggs for ramen (apparently he got yelled at by his wife for using all of her eggs in the process). So following this guy's advice, we brought eggs and water to boil, turned off the gas, set a timer for three minutes, plunged them in cold water to stop the cooking, then tried to peel them, only to realize that US Grade A Large eggs are larger than your standard egg in Japan. Of the four eggs we tried to peel, we only managed to get three of them out intact, and when the fourth ripped in half it was clear that not only had the yolk not set at all, not even all the white was hard. I draw the line at uncooked egg white. We started over, going with five minutes in the hot water this time. This gave us eggs with a mostly set, kind of fudgy yolk, which were perfect for soaking up porky soy sauce.
Woohoo! I've now used my pasta machine FOUR times!
     Making pasta isn't particularly tricky, but getting the right chew for the ramen noodles required bread flour and lots of kneading of a dough so stiff that the recipe calls for walking on it. This was actually necessary - you'd wear out your wrists trying to knead this stuff by hand. Maki, Brian and I all took turns walking on the dough (through two layers of ziploc bags, so no worries!) until it had been folded and flattened ten times. We let it sit for a couple of hours to relax the gluten so that it could be rolled thin.

Sinks full, bellies empty

     Seven or so hours into the boil on the pork stock, it was starting to get cloudy from dissolved marrow (which is what you want - pork bone ramen should be milky, rather than transparent). It was also starting to taste really, really good. We kept topping the pot off to counteract all of the evaporation, which of course would dilute the stock, so we decided that we'd stop adding more water somewhere around the 8 hour mark.
     At about 8:00 the stock had been going for a little over eight hours, we were all hungry, and the noodles were ready to roll out. The stock would probably have continued to develop flavor if boiled for several more hours, but it was delicious, and did I mention 8:00? We strained the pork stock, put the chicken and soy stocks back on to heat up, and started on the noodles. We used my pasta maker - I guess you could roll them out by hand, but the machine is faster and does a more even job. We did most of the noodles on setting 5, but did one sheet on setting 6 just to see how they'd turn out. I liked the slightly thicker ones better. After pressing the sheets out, we ran them through the spaghetti cutter, then scrunched them up in our hands to make them sort of curly.
     By this point desperately hungry and with the end in sight, we used up the last two clean pots in the house to boil the noodles and the other toppings  - mung bean sprouts and seaweed (traditional), and a can of sweet corn (traditional for some other flavor of ramen, but both Maki and I like it). We cut the eggs in half and sliced the roast pork which, after spending all day tied up and in some liquid, nicely maintained its round shape for cutting. Into each bowl we heaped up a bunch of noodles, then added stock in a 1:2:4 soy:chicken:pork ratio. Each bowl got a slice or two of pork, two egg halves, and a pile of veggies, then, finally, the eating (then the crap! we need a picture of the final product, then more eating).

 Verdict

     This stuff was seriously good. Slightly sweet, nicely salty, very meaty. All four of us liked it, although I suspect Brian and Dennis didn't think it was worth all the trouble. The eggs were awesome - why I don't soak my eggs in soy sauce more often is beyond me. Maki loved the pork - I actually would have preferred it to be a little less soft (but it was still totally delicious). The noodles were the right texture but were missing something in flavor (maybe salt? more egg yolk?).
     It was also a tremendous pain in the ass. I think we cooked the pork stock for pretty much the minimum time required, which was a full 8 hours, maybe a little more. You could maybe get away without the chicken stock, but it's the least trouble of the three, so as long as you're going all out, why skimp on that? The soy stock was absolutely necessary. The whole affair was a lot of fun, though, and I'd do it again sometime. It would be nice to figure out a way to shorten the cooking time for the pork stock, maybe with a pressure cooker, or overnight in a crock pot.
 
The biggest problem? Every time I think about this I want pork bone ramen, and as previously mentioned, they don't serve it anywhere in Tucson. Dammit, Maki - this is all your fault!