What is Ramen?

Ramen is a Japanese noodle dish. It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a broth; common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including sliced pork (chāshū), nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Seasonings commonly added to ramen are white pepper, black pepper, butter, chili pepper, sesame seeds, and crushed garlic. Ramen has its roots in Chinese noodle dishes. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, such as the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu and the miso ramen of Hokkaido.

Ramen is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodle soups. According to historians, the more plausible theory is that ramen was introduced to Japan in the late 19th or early 20th centuries by Chinese immigrants living in Yokohama Chinatown. By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Guangzhou and Shanghai offered a simple dish of noodles, a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out. Today ramen is one of Japan's most popular foods, with Tokyo alone containing around 5,000 ramen shops.

Types

A wide variety of ramen exists in Japan, with geographical and vendor-specific differences even in varieties that share the same name. Although ramen usually has toppings, ramen can be broadly categorized by its two main ingredients: noodles and broth.

Noodles

Most noodles are made from four basic ingredients: wheat flour, salt, water, and kansui [ja], derived from the Chinese jiǎnshuǐ (鹼水), a type of alkaline mineral water containing sodium carbonate and usually potassium carbonate, as well as sometimes a small amount of phosphoric acid. Although ramen noodles and Udon noodles are both made with wheat and are similar, they are different kinds of noodle.

The kansui is the distinguishing ingredient in ramen noodles, and originated in Inner Mongolia, where some lakes contain large amounts of these minerals and whose water is said to be perfect for making these noodles. Making noodles with kansui lends them a yellowish hue as well as a firm texture. Eggs may also be substituted for kansui. Some noodles are made with neither eggs nor kansui and should only be used for yakisoba, as they have a weaker structure and are more prone to soaking up moisture and becoming extremely soft when served in soup.

According to an article by Sonoko Sakai at https://www.bonappetit.com/, you can make homemade ramen noodles using baked baking soda in place of kansui, the ingredient that’s used in the industrial production of ramen. Kansui can be tricky to source outside of a few Asian markets and online purveyors. Often it’s a cocktail of chemicals like sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, and phosphate salts. This is where baking soda comes in. Enterprising cooks like cookbook author and teacher Sonoko Sakai regularly rely on this pantry staple to replicate the alchemy of kansui—in recipes like her ramen noodles. It’ll save you a trip to the store, and it’ll help your ramen achieve that elastic, snappy texture that we all love.

Soup

Ramen soup is generally made from stock based on chicken or pork, combined with a variety of ingredients such as pork bones, katsuobushi (skipjack tuna flakes), niboshi (dried baby sardines), beef bones, shiitake, onions, and kombu (kelp). Some modern ramen broths can also be vegetable-based. Tare is often added to broth to make the soup.

• Tonkotsu (豚骨, 'pork bone'; not to be confused with tonkatsu) soup is broth with a typically translucent white colored appearance. Similar to the Chinese baitang (白湯), it has a thick broth made from boiling pork bones, fat, and collagen over high heat for many hours, which suffuses the broth with a hearty pork flavor and a creamy consistency that rivals milk, melted butter or gravy (depending on the shop). Although tonkotsu is merely a kind of broth, some people consider tonkotsu ramen (specialty of Kyushu, its birthplace) a distinct flavor category.
• Torigara (鶏がら, 'chicken bone') soup based on chicken bone broth originated mainly in Tokyo. It is often used as a base for salt and shōyu ramen.

Flavors

The resulting combination is generally divided into several categories. Although newer and older variations often make this categorization less clear-cut, a description of said old variations is as follows:

• Shio (塩, 'salt') ramen is the oldest of the four types. It has a pale, clear, yellowish broth made with plenty of salt and any combination of chicken, vegetables, fish, and seaweed. Occasionally pork bones are also used, but they are not boiled as long as they are for tonkotsu ramen, so the soup remains light and clear. Chāshū is sometimes swapped for lean chicken meatballs, and pickled plums and kamaboko (a slice of processed fish roll sometimes served as a frilly white circle with a pink or red spiral called narutomaki) are popular toppings as well. Noodle texture and thickness varies among shio ramen, but they are usually straight rather than curly. Hakodate ramen is a well-known version of shio ramen in Japan.
• Shōyu (醤油, 'soy sauce') ramen has a clear brown broth, based on a chicken and vegetable (or sometimes fish or beef) stock with plenty of soy sauce added resulting in a soup that is tangy, salty, and savory yet still fairly light on the palate. Shōyu ramen usually has curly noodles rather than straight ones, although this is not always the case. It is often adorned with marinated bamboo shoots or menma, scallions, ninjin ('carrot'), kamaboko ('fish cakes'), nori ('seaweed'), boiled eggs, bean sprouts or black pepper; occasionally the soup will also contain chili oil or Chinese spices, and some shops serve sliced beef instead of the usual chāshū.
• Miso (味噌) ramen reached national prominence around 1965. This uniquely Japanese ramen, which was developed in Sapporo Hokkaido, features a broth that combines copious miso and is blended with oily chicken or fish broth – and sometimes with tonkotsu or lard – to create a thick, nutty, slightly sweet and very hearty soup. Miso ramen broth tends to have a robust, tangy flavor, so it stands up to a variety of flavorful toppings: spicy bean paste or tōbanjan (豆瓣醤), butter and corn, leeks, onions, bean sprouts, ground pork, cabbage, sesame seeds, white pepper, chilli and chopped garlic are common. The noodles are typically thick, curly, and slightly chewy.
• Karē (カレー, 'curry') ramen is a relative newcomer, cooked with curry soup. In Japan, several cities claim to be its place of origin. The city of Muroran claims it originated there in 1965 (see also Muroran curry ramen), while the city of Sanjō claims to have had karē ramen for over 80 years, and the city of Katori also claims to have been the site of its origin. Curry soup is mainly made with pork bones and vegetables and is seasoned with curry. The noodles are thick and curly. Toppings include chāshū, wakame, and bean sprouts.

Toppings

After basic preparation, ramen can be seasoned and flavored with any number of toppings, including but not limited to:

• Chāshū (sliced barbecued or braised pork)
• Negi (green onion)
• Takana-zuke (Pickled and seasoned mustard leaves)
• Seasoned (usually salted) boiled egg (soy egg, ajitsuke tamago)
• Bean or other sprouts
• Menma (lactate-fermented bamboo shoots)
• Kakuni (braised pork cubes or squares)
• Kikurage (wood ear mushroom)
• Nori (dried seaweed)
• Kamaboko (formed fish paste, often in a pink and white spiral called narutomaki)
• Squid
• Umeboshi (pickled plum)
• Corn
• Butter
• Wakame (a type of seaweed)
• Olive oil
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce
• Other types of vegetables