Speedrun Ramen but with all the steps

In my post on Tonkotsu Style Ramen I cut the whole process up in several posts due to the length and the time the process takes. You start 3 days before you want to start eating!

Of course, the results were spectacular and I am not saying that it was not worth it. It is, however, impractical for the average South African family of 5 with 3 kids still in school to take the time out of our busy day to prepare one sitting of food for 3 days!

Sure, I would make a lot of broth and then we get to eat two meals out of one pot. However, then you are eating the same meal two nights in a row and need to get creative with the toppings

This was still before the FINALE of Tonkotsu Style broth for @aimeludick's birthday and I thought to myself - could I do this faster?

The whole reason it takes so long is generally the steps of slowly cooking those ingredients for 8-hour stints and then moving to the next step. When I did the first one, I was following all the instructions and with what ingredients and tools I had on me, I did my best.

The chef at the Three Wise Monkeys described my process as quite "traditional" which I took as a compliment!

So, I theorized that I could turn up the heat and lower the time. The result might not be so creamy and nice, but it will be ramen. Without telling anyone (because the last one took DAYS) I went for it.

Chicken topping prep

I still had some Liquid Gold from the Chāsū Pork that I had made and simply took a large Chicken breast to cook in the soy-based marinade. I added nothing and intended to debone the chicken once it was cooked.

By the time I was done, I has a thought: With the speed of the cooking, that wonderful flavor only had limited time to penetrate the chicken. So i stuck the chicken in the fridge and a little later deboned the chicken.

Sure enough, the meat was still clear and white. So luckily with that in mind, I had kept the Liquid Gold on the stove. I threw my deboned Chicken strips back into the pan and fried it up in the sauce.

The sauce was getting quite dehydrated and the result altogether was that the chicken got the color and the taste of that sauce properly!

Broth - Shoyu Style!

Meanwhile, as the chicken had started to cook, I started on the broth. I knew I was not doing Tonkotsu, so I could not wait 8 hours for low heat fat emulsification and all that. So I went for the Shoyu recipes.

This time, I was not coloring in the lines and following all the steps. This was speed-run style and I needed to be fast!

Onion! Carrots! Spring Onion! Into the bot and got it to boil. By the time the chicken had been deboned, the bones went into the the pot as well since chicken broth is one of those things.

Shoya is a soya falvour broth. Once I was done with my chicken topping the remainder of the Liquid Gold was put into the pot, giving it that Soya flavour.

Plating and toppings

At the end game, I had deboned and flavored chicken in a pan, the sauce had gone with the bones into the broth pot. While it was doing its last stretch of boiling, I did the softboil eggs.

6 minutes in boiling water and then out and straight into a bowl of ice water. Crack the shells right around and submerge again, then shell. I did not bother with a marinade on the eggs today. I had gotten quite good at a soft boil. Look at those yolks!

I also got the noodles cooking, no secrets here. Just add a little oil and stir to prevent the noodles from sticking together.

As we had seen at the Three Wise Monkeys, corn could be used as a topping. I also cut raw spinach strips and added the dried seaweed.

The broth was strained into another pot and everything was put together and plated. Noodles, broth and toppings. The entire process took me about 2 to 2.5 hours to complete!

Enjoy!