Pork Ramen the Quick Way
Serves: 4
Time: approx 40 minutes
An authentic pork ramen is such a delicious dish but there is hours worth of prep involved: you need to make the broth from scratch and slow cook the pork, marinate eggs and there are quite a lot of sauce components to make as well. So this is instead my express cheat’s version. Still super tasty but obviously the flavours aren’t as deep as the real deal. It is still a mighty tasty dinner and it’s quick, which is a win in my house.
Lunch Leftovers
Lunch is the same but I would suggest you travel the stock in a jar (we like to recycle jam and sauce jars as they are perfect for lunch ingredients).
Pork Mince
Not a fan of pork mince? Swap it for chicken or turkey or be brave and give it a try...I used to hate the idea of pork mince then I started eating san choy bau - now I am an absolute fan and use pork mince in loads of dishes. Go free range.
What you'll need
500g pork mince
4 cloves of garlic
1 large thumb sized piece of ginger
1 small brown onion
1 litre of chicken stock or broth
5g sachet or 1 heaped teaspoon dashi powder
1 packet of ramen noodles
2 nori sheets
bonito flakes (optional... they pack some serious flavour)
Japanese Ingredients
Most of the large supermarkets have fabulous asian sections now, but if you can't find the dashi powder in the supermarket you can swap it out for miso soup paste or take a trip to your local asian supermarket.
1 bunch Chinese broccoli
2 spring onions
4 eggs
2 tablespoons Chiu Chow Chili Oil
From the pantry
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce or tamari
Prep and Cook
This dish has a lot on the go at once so please have a quick read through the instructions before you start.
Boil Water
Put one large and one small pot of water on to boil.
Prep Stock
Finely slice the onion and sauté in a large pot till it begins to caramelize.
Add the stock to your pot and bring to the boil, then add the dashi and soy sauce.
Turn down to a low temp.
Cook Eggs
Use a spoon to gently drop your eggs into the small pot of boiling water. Cook for 4 minutes then transfer to a bowl with running cold water.
Peel when cold and slice in half length ways.
Cook Noodles
Drop your ramen noodles into the large pot of boiling water, stirring as you go so they separate.
Cook for 4 minutes. Drain and toss with some oil so they don’t stick together.
Cook Pork
Finely slice or grate the garlic and ginger.
In a large frypan, heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Sauté the garlic and ginger then add the pork mince (you may need to do this in batches depending on the size of your pan so that the meat doesn’t sweat).
Season with salt and pepper.
Fry the pork till almost crispy, this will take some time, so while the pork is cooking you can also be arranging your noodles into two bowls and two boxes for lunch.
Use a pair of scissors to slice each sheet of nori into 3 then cut into thin strips.
Finely slice spring onions.
Bring the stock back up to a boil and check the flavour, if it tastes a bit weak add more dashi.
Drop the chinese broccoli into your boiling stock and cook for 30 seconds.
Plate it Pretty
Pour the hot stock over your noodles.
Top with the fried pork, a large spoonful of Chiu Chow chilli sauce, a scattering of nori sheets, sprinkle with spring onions and a pinch of bonito flakes.
Finish with eggs placed off to the side.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
Lunch for tomorrow is exactly the same as tonight’s dinner. I would suggest if you are transporting, to put the soup into a small tight-fitting jar.