Ramen Archives - Poor Man's Gourmet Kitchen

Braised Pork Belly with Noodles

The Best Ramen

If you’ve only been eating 15 cent grocery store bought Ramen packages, with foam noodles, and you’ve never had Ramen made fresh in a Restaurant or at home with egg noodles, you’ve been missing out. There’s nothing like a fresh bowl of gourmet cooked Ramen made right because it’s packed with carbs, proteins and all kinds of vitamins and nutrients; especially if it’s made with Bone Broth. Real Ramen recipes have this and they’re delicious.

Cubed cut pork belly portions braising in a large pot of ingredients.

Cooking Pork Belly

The most important thing about cooking pork is making sure it’s cooked all the way through. But, you don’t need to worry about that when you’re braising because the slow and low process goes above and beyond the safety measure temperatures and breaks down the enzymes in the meat to the point of absolute tenderness. In this recipe, I encourage you to poach the pork belly pieces for no less than 20 minutes. This will delicately cook the meat all of the way through before braising in my secret sauce.

Homemade Ramen Noodles with Braised Pork Belly, Baby Bok Choy, Spinach, Beef Broth and Scallions.

Making this Noodle Soup

It’s always a good idea to use the freshest ingredients when making this dish, however, some substitutions can be made and I’ve made a few. I do teach you how to make Beef Bone Broth from scratch and it’s great in this recipe if you want to spend 3 hours making it. If not, Knorr’s Bouillon is a fantastic alternative and I use their Beef, Chicken and Tomato recipes often(not affiliated, I just like it).

It’s also nice to have fresh noodles on hand and you can either Make them yourself, the way I show you “How to make Pasta“, purchase the oriental style Yaka Soba noodles, which I use in this recipe, or just use a plain cheap package of Ramen noodles. All will work just fine for this recipe.

Vegetables are always a fine addition to practically any soup and this dish is no exception. You can add what ever you like but my recomendations for this recipe 3 simple greens; fresh spinach, baby bok choy and scallions. Celery, carrot, cilantro, bean sprouts, red onion and corn are also other great alternatives and additions.

As far as proteins go, boiled or poached eggs are very common in Ramen bowls, chicken, instead of pork belly if you prefer or even beef brisket is great.

Braised Pork Belly with Noodles Ingredients:

1 lbs Frozen Yaki Soba Noodles (my favorite)
3 cups Beef Broth, to cook the noodles in and use as soup
2 to 3 lbs Pork Belly, cut into cubes

Vegetables
8 oz Spinach
10 Baby Bok Choy
2 Green Onions, chopped

Hong Shao Rou Braising Ingredients
2 Fresh Ginger, sliced (size of a quarter)
1/4 tsp Anise
1 tsp Pickling Spice, ingredients below
1 pinch Chili Flakes
1/4 cup Soy Sauce
1/4 cup White Wine
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
Top off pork belly with water in pot (2 to 3 cups)

Bring to a boil then simmer and cook, with a lid, for 1 1/2 hours.

Serve with 8 oz of cooked noodles, 5 to 6 cubes of Braised Pork Belly, 2 to 3 ladles of beef broth, 3 oz of Hong Shao Rou sauce, Garnish with Spinach, Baby Bok Choy and Green onion.

Pickling Spice Ingredients:
2 tbsp Mustard Seeds, whole
1 tbsp Allspice Berries, whole
2 tsp Coriander, seeds
1 tsp Red Pepper Chili Flakes
1 tsp Ginger, ground
2 Bay Leaves, crumbled
2 Cinnamon Sticks
6 Cloves, whole

Please watch the video tutorial and I’ll show you exactly how to make this Noodle Soup with Braised Pork Belly.

Korean Shin Ramyun Kujiari style Ramen with Beef

Korean Kujirai style Ramen noodles with Beef.

The Best Ramen

I have always been a big fan of noodles and I have always loved Ramen. I don’t usually eat them with the soup, though. I’ve always cooked my ramen, drained the broth and eaten my noodles dry with a dash of soy sauce. I think that’s why I love this recipe so much. This Kujirai style Ramyun is a Korean ramen recipe that is derived from a comic book. It is cooked with a smaller portion of water and reduced until it’s practically gone. Then you just add a few more fresh ingredients over the top and, literally within minutes, its done.

Kujirai style Ramyun Ingredients with Beef.

Kujirai style Ramyun Noodles

It’s hard to find anything about this recipe and where it actually originates from. I mentioned that it supposedly comes from a comic book but, as far as I can tell, it isn’t the kind you might be thinking of, with super heroes and such. No, I can’t be certain but I think it comes from the comic style cook book, “Let’s Make Ramen” by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan. I haven’t finished reading it yet but this book illustrates a fun story and the history of Ramen working it’s way through time. So, if I’m wrong about the origins of this recipe, I still highly recommend this book because I think most Americans and many other cultures are completely ignorant to this perfected art.

Be sure to check out my other Ramen recipes: Lo Mein, Ramen Spaghetti Pizza, Dan Dan Noodle.

Korean Shin Ramyuan – Kujirai style Ramen with Beef by PoorMansGourmet

Kujirai style Ramyun Ingredients:

1 pkg Shin Ramyun
2 eggs
2 pcs Cheese, sliced
3 pcs Beef, deli sliced
1 Green Onion, chopped

This dish can easily feed 2 people and it only takes 5 to 10 minutes to make. Just follow the directions in the video tutorial and I’ll show you how easy this is to make.

Grocery Shopping – Ingredients for Oriental Recipes

Believe it or not, it’s so easy shopping for ingredients for Oriental recipes. I’d dare say, it’s even fun. You get so much culture in such a little place and sometimes its just really nice to get out of my comfort zone only to realize it can be just as comfortable somewhere else.

The folks at this 1st Oriental Market are amazing people. They’re so eager to help with all your needs. And I find that this is common just about anywhere I go when it comes to foreign food. People like to share their experiences and culture. I find that it isn’t any different here and the owner, Earl and his wife, make it a real pleasant experience.

Most Oriental Cooking, these days, is very simplified because almost all of the guess work has already been cut out for you. I don’t have to make every individual sauce that is used to combine with other sauces to make one great recipe. For example: when a recipe calls for Hoisin Sauce, you don’t have to make you’re own Hoisin Sauce from scratch(which would require several other ingredients), you just crack open a bottle. And what about Plum Sauce… could you imagine having to make that beforehand too? Both of these ingredients are in my Chinese Barbecue Sauce recipe, which only has 5 or 6 ingredients: Hoisin, Plum Sauce, Ketchup, Sugar, 5 spice powder etc., and that makes it really simple just buying each one of those premade bottles. But, could you imagine having to make all of those ingredients as well? You’d be making ingredients for your ingredients.

That being said, I would just like you to understand and realize that you don’t have to learn translations of ingredients you’ve probably never heard of in the first place. Because, most of the basic ingredients I show you in this video are very versatile to most of the popular Americanized Oriental recipes that you’re likely familiar with anyway.

So get familiar with the few I show you now and I’ll introduce more as we go and you’ll be a pro before you know it!