Friday 24 August 2018

Spicy miso pork ramen

I need to find a way to make you want to make this. I can offer taste tests, evidenced-based reviews and margaritas. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe and if you're not a fan of him, I beg you to put that to one side and give this a crack. 

Its beauty lies in its simplicity. And cleverness. The ability to create such depth of flavour with so little expended effort. And so few ingredients. 

Now I'm a fan of the complicated. Hard to find ingredients where I need to walk down a side alley in Fortitude Valley and knock a secret code on a door to have a parcel of obscure spices slipped out. Or drive upwards of 50km in a north, south, east or westerly direction (well not really east because that would land me in Moreton Bay but you get my enthusiasm) to garner one of the six available black truffles. 

Everything on this list I could bang together at my local Woolies at Morningside. And I truly believe that if I stretch it, I could find identical ingredients at Woolies at Cannon Hill and Woolies at Wynnum Plaza. I'm not too sure about Capalaba. Or Logan. But these days you never know. If you're a Brisbane eastern suburbs local, you'll be nodding by now. Happy to hear feedback from Kallangur and Morayfield. 

Measurements have never really been my thing so take what I provide as a guide and use your instinct. And bloody keep tasting it ok. That's one thing Manu gets right in his world with too much affected accent and colourful jackets. He repeatedly tells cooks to taste. Bloody taste. 

Best you make it before the daytime temp starts hovering around 30 or save it for next winter. It's not really a summer dish. 
You can buy these from Woolies

Serves 4. Or 2. Depending on how hungry you are.

Ingredients

Oil (rice bran, sunflower, vege, whatever)
2-6 garlic cloves, finely chopped (I've been known to use 7 hence the wide arc)
3-6cm piece of ginger, grated
250g pork mince
¼ cup mirin
2 tablespoons soy sauce
¼ cup red miso paste
1 tablespoon chilli paste (I used that sambal olek - see pic - and it was magnificent)
1 litre chicken stock (Campbells is fine but don't get salt-reduced)
2 eggs
Ramen noodles (use the whole three bunches, fuck it)
2 bunches pak choy or bok choy

Method

Heat oil in a frypan over medium to high heat. Now this can be on the stove, or you can use your electric wok.

Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally for 2-3 minutes until that fabulous aroma fills your kitchen and your heart.


Now you need a bit of commitment for this next bit. Consider a soothing beverage to keep you company.

Add the mince and continually stir, breaking it up and getting it brown all over.

Combine the mirin, soy, miso and chilli in a bowl then pour it over the nicely browned pork. Keep with it, on a reasonably high heat, stirring and turning, stirring and turning, until the mince is a really rich brown and has started to caramelise. When that happens cook it for another 1-2 minutes despite your instincts telling you to get it the fuck off the stove. Now you can take it off the heat.

Please listen to me. It may take a few minutes to work with this mince but trust me when I say it will be worth it. Just keep the heat to it and keep turning it. You can certainly do other things while you're chained to the stove - watch Netflix, scream at children, drink wine, scroll through Instagram. Better still, post a pic to Insta. Tag me.

Pour the stock into a saucepan and bring it to the boil then it can simmer patiently until it's needed.

Meanwhile (back at the ranch) boil some water in a saucepan so you can cook the eggs - if possible, you want the eggs to be at room temperature before you put them in the water. Once they're in the water, cook them for four minutes and not a second longer. When the buzzer goes (because I am assuming you have set the timer on your iPhone X), get them out, and plunge them into some ice cold water that you just happened to have on standby. This stops the cooking process. It's like face-palming the egg.

To cook the noodles, I boil a full kettle, pour the water into a glass or ceramic bowl, add the noodles and let them do their thing for 3-5 minutes, then I strain them in a colander and give them a quick rinse.

Chop the ends off the pak/bok choy, microwave for a minute.

Now is the time to build.

Put noodles in the bottom of the bowl. Put the pak/bok choy on top. Then divide the mince between the 2 or 3 or 4 bowls. Pour over the hot stock. Peel and halve the eggs and pop on top of it all. Wait about 2-3 minutes and then watch how the stock takes on the properties of the chilli and becomes rich and dark and so full of intense flavour.

Thank you Jamie. Sometimes you annoy me. This is not one of those times.

You want to be eating this baby with chopsticks and one of those fabulous Asian spoons.

Jamie suggests topping it with bamboo shoots, spring onion, sesame seeds etc. I couldn't be fucked but you go right ahead.