Homemade Ramen Noodle Recipe
I am so excited to share with you the ramen recipe that we have finally perfected! First off, a little background on why my husband and I decided to pursue making our own ramen. After trying the ramen in places such as Japan, Toronto and Vancouver over the past couple of years we often get a hankering for ramen. Unlike Toronto where there are ramen places down the street, in Edmonton where I currently live, there are no places at the momen to get some good quality ramen.
We feel that a good fresh ramen noodle should have just the right amount of bite (or al dente) mouth-feel and should have a distinct flavour unto its own (non-bland). Most ramen noodles that we've tried have been too soft or flavour-less.
Hence the quest for making our own. Flashback to this past October 2013 when us together with some of our food friends decided that we needed to test out different ramen recipes to truly figure out if we could indeed create ramen at home. November happened to be our friend's Andrea's birthday (otherwise known as Little Miss Andrea), so what better way than to have a Ramen Party?
We even had a chalkboard depicting ramen and a hashtag to make it official! |
We definitely have to thank my husband as he did most (if not all) of the grunt work. In the end, he created four different batches of ramen following different recipes and methods. When it came time to eating, we did a blind taste test of each ramen and judged the ramen using various categories. A sample of our judging chart is pictured below.
After we had blind tasted all the ramen noodles (without broth) and tallied our scores, everyone was in agreement that Ramen A was the clear winner. Initially, it did taste slightly more alkaline, but the colour was a nice yellow and the texture of the noodle was perfectly al dente. Once Ramen A was served with the miso broth and all the toppings, it became the perfect ramen bowl.
So, here is the recipe for Ramen A with a few modifications for taste and texture. Surprisingly, it is not a recipe found in Lucky Peach or in Momofuku.
Ramen Ingredients:
- 480g All Purpose Flour
- 120g Bread Flour (not whole wheat)
- 1 Cup of Water
- 2 tsp of Kansui (Lye Water) mixed in 90 mL of water
Ramen Directions:
- Measure the water and kansui (lye water) with a scale.
- Mix the water and kansui together. Attach the bowl to the mixer and run on medium high speed for 10 minutes. It is a dry dough, and will begin to look like a bunch of gravel. Once it looks like gravel, turn the mixer off. Form the dough into a tight ball. There should be no dough pieces falling off.
- Place the dough into a lightly floured bowl and cover with saran wrap. Let the dough rest for a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge. It will turn a dark yellow (almost green) after it rests in the fridge.
- After a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge, divide the dough into 8 balls. Flatten each ball out on a flat surface. Then, run each piece through the largest setting of your pasta roller a few times, folding it in half each time. The dough will be ragged the first few runs through but will smooth out. Flour the dough generously and roll it out all the way from setting 1 to 5 on the pasta roller. You are trying to make it thinner. Use the spaghetti attachment to cut the pasta into long thin noodles. Dust the noodles with flour as they are cut to keep them from sticking together.
- One serving of noodles is 142g (or 5 oz) of uncooked noodles. Prepare how much noodle you are going to cook and prepare of pot of boiling water large enough to cook your noodles. Get a timer ready. When it is at a rolling boil, put the noodles in and immediately begin the timer. Stir to keep the noodles separated. Cook the noodles for only 2 minutes 15 seconds for maximum enjoyment. Once you put the noodles into the boiling water it will stop boiling but keep the timer going to prevent overcooking.
- Once the noodles have been cooked, pull them out and rinse the noodles under cold water. This will help rinse off any of the lye taste.
toppings for the ramen: cha siu from Argenplath, homemade pork jowl chasui & onsen egg from L & S,
and crab from T. - Add noodles to a bowl, add broth and toppings. Enjoy!
Hot bowl of ramen topped with bonito flakes & sesame seeds.
Enjoy all your hard work as this is guaranteed to satisfy your craving of ramen noodle at home. Each serving of ramen for a person is 142g. Needless to say all 11 of us ate very well that night. Hands down, a great way to celebrate a birthday with friends.
Hopefully you will try your hand at homemade ramen noodles at home! I'm also more than happy to answer any questions. Our next challenge is to focus on the broth.
nice! you guys are hard core! i love the mix of science and food - thanks for sharing all your hard work with us all! cheers
ReplyDeleteWow, this looks amazing! I also have a love affair with ramen..wish we could have places like in Vancouver just down the street. Just curious, what did you use for the broth? Did you guys make that yourself as well?
ReplyDelete@Mona Poon Yes, I LOVE ramen and I am so glad we finally worked on a recipe that works! As for the broth, we are now using about 3lbs of pork bones (from our local butcher - ACME Meat market), brown the pork bones with garlic & oil. Once browned, we fill with water to the line. Pressure cook for 45 minutes. Afterwards we add a bit of miso paste (depending on how dark you want the broth) to add to taste!
ReplyDeleteEventually we want to make the tonkatsu broth, but for now pork bone soup this way works great!
Hope that helps! try out the ramen! You can use the pasta maker on your Kitchen aid or a hand crank one (that you can get for a decent price at Winners etc..). Once you make your own pasta, ramen, lasagna it's so hard to go back to boxed.
Wow, sounds great. Yes, tonkatsu broth...absolutely delish. I will have to try making this one day. Thanks for posting this. Your blog is always a great read. I'm also a huge macaron fan, so I'll have to try one of your recopes you posted!
ReplyDeleteYes! even if you don't end up making the broth (just miso soup and some chicken stock will be perfect for now). aw..thanks! Glad to know people are reading :)
ReplyDeleteYes! try making macarons! they may be a bit tricky at first, but it is so worth it!
make sure you take a look at the tutorials first to get started.
http://www.beyondumami.com/p/macaron-basics.html
What does the lye water do?
ReplyDeleteFor example, what happens when you soak vegetables in lye water (or eggs/bi soda)?
blipton Lye s a liquid that has strong alkali properties. Lye water helps to give the noodles its distinctive chewy texture. However, once the noodles are cooked it is best to rinse them so any lye on the noodles are rinsed off. It isn't the safest item so I would def not be soaking veggies in it. It can be quite toxic.
ReplyDeleteI have found that lye water is also used in wonton noodles. Again, to give the chewy texture. Sometimes, it is also used in chinese mooncakes.
aww..thanks again Suzanne! sorry I didn't reply to this when you first posted this! mm..always something faulty with these comment threads! :D
ReplyDeleteWhere did you find Kansui in Edmonton? I have checked around and can't seem to find any!
ReplyDeleteWe get the lye water from T&t. It is in the vinegar /sauces aisle. It is in a glass bottle with an orange top. The bottle is as big as a small sized condiment bottle.
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious!
ReplyDeleteHow do you get the meat to be the right softness?
Any possibilities on a tonkatsu version?
soon soon!! will try to make a tonkatsu version!
ReplyDeleteSo its 340ml in total?
ReplyDeleteCan i put the dough for longer then 4 hours maybe also more then 24 hours before using it?
ReplyDeleteYes, in total but you don't want to add all 340mL at once. See the revised version http://www.beyondumami.com/2016/02/ramen-noodle-recipe-revised.html
ReplyDeleteIn Dan's experiments he found you can only go for a maximum of 24 hours before the dough starts to turn from the alkalinity. If you need longer, you should cut the noodles and then consider vacuum sealing or freezing them.
ReplyDeletealso look at the more updated version too! http://www.beyondumami.com/2016/02/ramen-noodle-recipe-revised.html
ReplyDeleteCan i dry the noodles and how will it affect the cooking time? And also, how does the cooking time affect the noodles textures, other recipes who are similar cook their noodles up to 5 min!
ReplyDeleteYou could dry the noodles but we usually use ours from fresh or we freeze it in batches after making it.
ReplyDeleteIt really does cook super fast so follow our instructions for this type of noodle. Dan is super specific for how he wants the texture to be! yes, cooking time does affect noodle texture. if you want soggy noodles and super soft than keep cooking them. If you want the correct spring and texture than follow along :D
Is it possible to freezw the dough in any way?
ReplyDeleteI'm from edmonton too! Where did you buy that kansui???
ReplyDeleteT&t! Also look at our most recent Ramen recipe too!
ReplyDeletebeyondumami (:
ReplyDeleteThank you, I'll try the recent one once i get the kansui :)
ReplyDelete