Tonkotsu Ramen
True tonkotsu means boiling pork bones into milky submission for twelve hours, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. This uses a good shop-bought tonkotsu base or concentrate and spends its time on the parts you can actually taste in a weeknight bowl: the tare, the chashu, the noodles.
- Total time
- 19 min
- Serves
- 2
- Effort
- Medium
What you need
Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.
0 of 9 in the basket.
How you make it
Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a rolling boil for the noodles and heat the tonkotsu broth in a separate pan until steaming but not boiling hard.
Sear the pork belly slices in a dry hot frying pan for 2 minutes per side until browned and cooked right through with no pink remaining, then set aside.
Divide the soy sauce and mirin between two deep warmed bowls - this tare is what actually seasons the broth, so do not skip it.
Boil the fresh noodles for 90 seconds to 2 minutes, tasting one to catch them while still firm, then drain hard by shaking the strainer several times.
Ladle the hot broth into the bowls over the tare, stir once, and lower in the drained noodles with the strands folded to face the same way.
Top with the pork, halved eggs, menma, spring onion and nori, add a few drops of sesame oil, and eat immediately before the noodles soften.
Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?
Completely fair. Tonkotsu Ramen is sitting in the Japanese kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.
Order it insteadMore from the Japanese kitchen
Quiet, precise, and secretly the coziest food there is.