Tokyo shoyu is the ancestor of so many bowls: a light chicken-and-dashi broth seasoned with soy, not the heavy tonkotsu of Hakata. Home cooks can cheat the long simmer with a good chicken stock plus kombu and a spoon of MSG or mushroom powder. What you cannot cheat is the assembly — hot bowl, taut noodles, egg with a jammy yolk.
Ingredients
- chicken bones or wings1 kg
- pork belly400 g
- soy sauce1/2 cup
- mirin3 tbsp
- ginger1 thumb
- garlic4 cloves
- scallions1 bunch
- ramen noodles4 portions
- eggs4
- nori4 sheets
Method
- 1
Cover bones with cold water, bring to a bare simmer, skim, and cook 2 to 3 hours with ginger, garlic, and scallion whites. Never a rolling boil.
- 2
Braise pork belly in a little of the broth with soy and mirin until tender, then chill and slice.
- 3
Soft-boil eggs 7 minutes, ice, peel, and marinate in soy-mirin.
- 4
Season the strained broth with soy to taste — it should smell of soy, not drown in it.
- 5
Boil noodles just shy of done. Bowl: broth, noodles, pork, halved egg, nori, scallion greens.