Now let’s cook
Ramen. The top floor of the bowl now belongs to kazy. Thin slices of this horse-meat sausage warm through in the chicken broth and go on top of the noodles.
Ingredients
- 1000 ml chicken stockUnsalted chicken stock, homemade or shop-bought.
- 120 g spring onionSpring onions (scallions), white part and green tops; a medium one weighs about 15 g.
- 15 g garlicFresh garlic; one clove weighs about 3 g.
- 20 g gingerFresh ginger root.
- 60 ml light soy sauceLight soy sauce, naturally brewed from soybeans, wheat, salt and water.
- 30 ml brown sugarSoft brown sugar.
- 30 ml waterPlain drinking water.
- 227 g shiitake mushroomsFresh shiitake mushrooms; the tough stems are trimmed off.
- 340 g ramen noodlesDried wheat ramen noodles, made with kansui, an alkaline mineral that gives them their chew.
- 200 g eggLarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell.
- 160 g kazyA sausage of horse rib meat with its fat; before serving it is simmered for 2–2.5 hours. Buy it already cooked.
Method
Trim the roots off the spring onions. Cut half of them in two for the broth and slice the other half thinly for serving. Peel the garlic, cut the ginger into rounds, trim the shiitake stems and slice the caps.
Stir the brown sugar into the water until it dissolves.
In a saucepan, combine the chicken stock, the spring onions for the broth, the garlic, the ginger, the soy sauce and the sugar water. Cover, bring to the boil over high heat, then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 20–25 minutes.
While the broth simmers, bring water to the boil in a small saucepan, lower in the eggs gently and boil them for about 10 minutes, until both yolk and white are firm. Cool the eggs in cold water, then peel and halve them.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the noodles a minute short of the time on the packet: they finish cooking in the hot broth. Drain them in a colander.
When the broth is ready, strain it and throw away the spring onions, garlic and ginger. Pour the broth back into the pan, add the sliced shiitake and simmer for 5 minutes more, until the mushrooms turn soft.
Cut the kazy into slices about 3 mm thick. Drop them into the boiling broth and heat them to 74 °C, until they are hot all the way through.
Divide the noodles between four bowls and ladle the hot broth with the shiitake over them. Top with the kazy slices, the egg halves and the sliced spring onions. Serve straight away.
Safety
Heat the kazy slices in the broth to 74 °C.
Boil the eggs until both yolk and white are firm.