Types of Ramen, Styles of Ramen

Types of Ramen: Ramen is a noodle in soup dish which originally made its way from China into Japan when the country reopened its borders during the Meiji Restoration. The dish was refined and improved to such an extent over the past century that it has all but overshadowed its original Chinese cousins on the world stage. The world of Ramen is pretty complicated and this post will systematically categorize the different styles of Ramen that are common in Japan along with their various soup flavours, broth types, accompanying meats and toppings. It doesn’t teach you how to cook Ramen, but you’ll know how to order different types of Ramen at a restaurant or recognize the various types at the supermarket.

The word ‘Ra’ means pulled (into) while ‘Men’ means noodles. That’s how the noodles were made in the old days, a single lump of dough was manually stretched and folded in half dozens of times til it formed a bunch of thin noodles. The noodles are machine made today but the dough is still made from the same basic ingredients: flour, salt, normal water and an alkaline mineral water called kansui. It is the kansui which give Ramen noodles their unique bounce and taste and it also makes them yellow even though they contain no egg. As raw ramen noodles are alkaline and have some flour dusted on them, they have to be boiled separately. The noodles come in different thicknesses and lengths, and can be curly or straight, but essentially there is relatively little to differentiate one type of good noodle from another. 

Broths
Basic ramen broth does not have too many ingredients. It is usually made from pork bones, chicken bones, or a combination of the two. In certain recipes dashi, which is a consommé made from Bonito(dried salted tuna) flakes or Niboshi(dried salted anchovy) is simmered with Konbu(a kind of kelp) and blended into the meat broth to create a purer clear broth. Fresh seafood may be used occasionally in certain regional varieties, but usually not beef and probably never mutton.

Flavour Types
For Ramen, broth and flavour are distinct and separate. This is one of the unique things about Ramen. Think of it as: broth + flavouring = soup.  A Ramen is usually defined by its flavour which affects its final taste. There are 4 primary types of Ramen soup flavours: Shio, Shoyu, Miso and Tonkotsu.

• Shio (She-Oh)
  means salt and this is traditionally the way Ramen soup is flavoured. All Western broths would be considered of the Shio type. The salt doesn’t affect the appearance of the broth and therefore Shio soup tends to light coloured and clear. Shio flavoured soup will tend to be a tad saltier than the other types.
• Shoyu (Show-You)
  means soy sauce and this is next oldest flavour type. Instead of salt, a sauce made by fermenting soya beans is used to make the broth salty. This sauce is not your regular table soya sauce, but typically a special sauce with additional ingredients made according to a secret recipe. The broth for Shoyu is the only type that tends not to contain pork. Shoyu soup is also usually clear, but is dark coloured and sweeter than Shio soup.
• Miso (Me-So)
  In more recent times, Miso paste has also been used to give Ramen broth its savoury taste. If Miso is used, it is immediately obvious as the soup will be opaque. Shio or Shoyu  flavoured soups merely accent the flavour of underlying broth, while miso leaves a fuller complex taste in the mouth since it also has a strong taste of its own.
• Tonkotsu (Tong-Coats-Zoo)
  is technically not a true flavour since it is contains either salt or soy sauce. It is made from boiling ground up pork bones for 12-15 hours till all the collagen has dissolved into the stock as gelatin. The result is a rich whitish soup that is distinct enough to consider Tonkotsu as a separate fourth flavour of Ramen. To be clear, the use of pork bones does not automatically mean the soup is of the Tonkotsu type. If the pork bones are boiled whole for a relatively shorter period, the result is just regular pork broth.

Meat Ingredients
The most common type of meat served in Ramen is Chashu which is another type of food borrowed from China and subsequently modified over decades. It is basically a braised pork belly compressed into a cylinder, that is served in slices. What the pork is braised in differs from recipe to recipe but general ingredients include soya sauce, sake, mirin and sugar. In my humble opinion, the Chashu is the hardest part to get right in a Ramen. Chashu often goes hand in hand with Shoyu Ramen since the braising liquid can form part of the ‘shoyu’. Sometimes the pork belly is braised in its original shape but also sliced, but in this case it is technically not Chashu. 

Another item that one finds more often than not in their Ramen is Ajitama, a soya sauce seasoned boiled egg with its yolk still runny. The Chashu braising liquid also comes in handy when seasoning these eggs. Ramen can also be served with fresh seafood, Kamaboko(a bouncy fish cake with a characteristic pink swirl) or with no meat at all. Unlike for soba or udon soup noodles, slices of beef are rarely served with Ramen, although new age Wagyu Ramen has been making an appearance lately.    

Toppings and Condiments
Whilst the number of possible ingredients used for Ramen broth is quite limited, a large variety of ingredients are used as toppings to differentiate one Ramen from another. They more common toppings include Nori(Dried Seaweed),  Menma (preserved bamboo shoots), Negi(scallion), Kikurage(black fungus), juliened leek, sesame seeds, garlic, pickled plum/ginger and bean sprouts.

Regional Styles
The way Ramen is cooked has more or less evolved over the past century along geographical lines. Tonkotsu is the primary flavour of Kyushu Island in the South while Miso is generally associated with Hokkaido Island in the North. The central island of Honshu is home to the Shoyu flavour. Even within these demarcations, local variations have sprung up and are known by their city or prefecture of origin. Many of these variations feature local produce that is famous nationally. The following is a list of the main varieties (that I have come across anyway) of Ramen.

Nagasaki Shikairo, Home of Champon

• Asahikawa style Ramen
  This is a less well know shoyu type ramen that is distinguished by its combination of seafood and pork into an oily stock. Like all ramen from Hokkaido, it is designed with cold weather in mind. Asahikawa ramen uses roughly the same toppings as shoyu ramen from Tokyo (see below).
• Champon
  Champon is a specialty of Nagasaki which was invented by a Chinese cook as a Meiji era equivalent of affordable fast food, for the Chinese students who were studying there. It is the most Chinois of all Ramen and today Champon is served at every restaurant in Nagasaki’s Chinatown. It is the only ramen from Kyushu which does not use a Tonkotsu soup. Unlike all other ramen, Champon uses special noodles that are cooked in the soup itself. This ramen is served with stir fried mix of pork, seafood and cabbage.
• Hakodate style Ramen
  As all ramen was originally Shio flavoured, Shio ramen wasn’t invented in any particular place. However, when one mentions Shio ramen, a bowl of Hakodate style Ramen comes to mind immediately. Hakodate is where the tradition of making ramen soup flavoured with salt has remained unchanged even as new flavours and styles were introduced all over Japan. Hakodate style ramen is usually made with chicken broth resulting in a golden coloured soup. Very often Hakodate Ramen comes with chicken meatballs.
• Hakata style Ramen
  Tonkotsu type ramen originated on the warmer Southern island of Kyushu where most of Japan’s pig farming is done. Hakata is a district in Fukuoka City, the biggest city on Kyushu and the style of ramen from there is universally recognized as the standard version of tonkotsu. Hakata Ramen is usually topped with Chashu, egg, scallion, sesame seeds and pickled ginger.   
• Kurume style Ramen
  A close cousin of Hakata Ramen is Kurume(Koo-Roo-Mare) Ramen. This is thought of as the original way Tonkotsu was made before it was modernized into the Hakata style. Its soup is similar but even richer in pork taste (from adding pig’s head, trotters etc. to the broth). The noodles of this variety come topped with fried pig lard bits and dried seaweed.
• Kumamoto style Ramen
  Kumamoto prefecture is in the middle of Kyushu and its style of ramen is yet another variation of the Tonkotsu type. It is served with pork belly, and a generous amount of fried garlic together with the oil the garlic was fried in. Toppings include pickled ginger and julienned leek.
• Kagoshima style Ramen
  Kagoshima is a port at the Southern tip of Kyush. Here the soup is lighter as it is made from a mixture of pork tonkotsu and clear chicken broth. Kagoshima is home to Kurobuta pork, which makes their chashu all the more delicious. Other types of noodles, similar to those from ‘nearby’ Okinawa or Taiwan are sometimes served in place of regular ramen noodles.
• Kitakata style Ramen
  This style of Ramen has a unique shoyu flavoured soup made from pork broth mixed with dashi made from dried anchovies. It hails from the city of Kitakata in Northern Honshu which purportedly has the highest concentration of Ramen shops in the world. Kitakata style Ramen features flat noodles and is typically served with sliced pork belly, leek and fish cake.
• Sapporo style Ramen
  The city of Sapporo is in the Northern Island of Hokkaido and it is the bastion of Miso flavoured Ramen. The first use of miso in Ramen soup was by chef Omiya in Sapporo in the 1950s. Chicken or pork bones are used for the broth and when combined with red Miso paste makes for a rich soup, perfect for the cold weather up North. Hokkaido is home to the big vegetable and dairy farms of Japan as well as several fishing ports. Today the inclusion of the top natural produce of Hokkaido in the toppings (butter, corn, leek, roasted scallops) and soup (seafood) in Sapporo style ramen has become common practice.
• Tokyo style Ramen
  Tokyo style Ramen is the archetypical Shoyu flavoured Ramen. Many Ramen stalls originally served soba in a dashi soup and when the use of Shoyu was introduced, the practice of using dashi was retained. Today chicken stock and shoyu is mixed with dashi to produce the unique Tokyo style Ramen. Tokyo Ramen is usually served with Chashu and half an Egg, and topped with chopped leek and preserved bamboo shoots. In Yokohama, the port of Tokyo, pork is used instead of chicken for the broth resulting in the iekei sub-variation.
• Tokushima / Wakayama style Ramen
  Tokushima style Ramen is the most popular style of Ramen on Shikoku Island, the smallest of the 4 main islands. It uses a combination tonkutsu-shoyu soup which is deep brown in colour. This ramen is served with a raw egg instead of an almost-cooked one and also baraniku, a kind of stewed pork rib. A sub-variation of the Tokushima style is Wakayama style Ramen. Wakayama is on the main island of Honshu, just across the inland sea from Tokushima which is probably why Wakayama Ramen can be described as a Tokyo style Ramen served in Tokushima soup. For instance it will be served with a boiled runny-yolk egg instead of a raw one.
  

  Quality Ramen Pack

Supermarket bought Ramen
In this final section I am going to discuss home-cooked Ramen. Quality ramen from the supermarket normally comes in rectangular 2 serving packs. If they are available, they will be found in the refrigerated (not frozen) section. The packing will generally indicate the flavour (e.g. tonkotsu on the yellow pack) of the ramen. If its a really good product, there will be a picture of a famous Ramen chef whose recipe the product is based on. The noodles are soft, sealed seperately within and the instructions will tell you to cook them separately from the soup. The soup will come in the form of a large pouch containing a condensed soup paste. You’ll need to procure all the meat ingredients and condiments yourself separately, resulting in a home-style ramen. If you don’t have any chashu lying around the house, try pan-fried luncheon meat (please do not quote me on this) and perhaps some seasoned runny yolk boiled eggs made according to my recipe. The easiest condiments to use are perhaps Japanese dehydrated vegetable/kelp, sesame seeds and fried garlic. 

Soba stick ‘Ramen’

A second type of noodles is the off-the-shelf ramen-style soba stick noodles. Technically buckwheat soba noodles means this is not a true ramen but the soup pack that comes with with them is a concentrated form of a recognized ramen soup. These stick noodles also come in dual servings. The packaging will be long and typically indicate the regional style (Kumamoto, Kagoshima, Nagasaki from left to right in photo) of the soup, often with a map to show where the style originates. It’s not as good as the quality ramen above but on the plus side, they keep for a long time and don’t need to be refrigerated.

If your pack of noodles is the type where you just boil a hard cake of noodles in water or fill a paper cup with boiling water and add some soup powder after the fact, this isn’t ramen at all; its only regular instant noodles. Besides being hard to the touch, the other tell-tale difference is these inferior noodles are always made with 1 serving. These instant noodles are dried by deep frying them in oil and the soup powder contains a heavy dose of MSG so this type of noodles are not too healthy. The packaging will neither give a ramen flavour nor style, but will be described by the meat (e.g. chicken) used to manufacture the soup powder.

 

Cauliflower Puree with Morel Mushrooms

(serves 3 as appetizers, 6 as amuse-bouche)
This is a dish that uses the King of Mushrooms, the Morel. For the longest time I wanted to create a signature vegetarian dish which could stand shoulder to shoulder with normal dishes. Finally I managed to come up with a recipe that has a meaty taste without using meat, a buttery nutty taste without using nuts, and good structure without using starch. Everyone always asks me what are the other ingredients and they refuse to believe there is nothing other than morel mushrooms and cauliflower on their plate, but that’s the truth. 

 

Ingredients

1. Chopped Cauliflower (1.5 cups)
2. Dried Morel Mushrooms (0.5 cups)
3. Butter
4. Cream
5. Port
6. Dill Weed

Preparation

1. Soak 0.5 cup of dried morel mushrooms in 0.5 cup of cool water.
2. Crudely chop up your cauliflower into pea sized pieces. Discard the main stem.
3. After the morels have soaked for at least 20 minutes, squeeze them dry and cut them also into pea sized bits. Keep the liquid.
4. Stir fry the morel bits with a knob of butter on low heat for 2 minutes. Add 1T of port and a pinch of salt towards the end and turn the fire off as the pan dries. Put the morel bits aside.
5. Simmer the cauliflower bits in the morel water in the same pan. Add 0.5t salt, 0.5t sugar, 0.5t pepper, 1T port, a knob of butter and 4T cream. When the liquid has been reduced by half, reserve a few T of the thickened liquid as a sauce for dressing.
6. Puree the cauliflower in a food processor. How fine you want the puree to be is up to you, but I usually like to leave it slightly grainy for that extra texture. Covered with some cling film and refrigerate for half an hour.
7. Manually stir half the morel bits into the cauliflower puree and then arrange the puree on your plates. Sprinkle on some dill weed and dress with the reserved sauce and remaining morel bits. 

Notes

• You can consider serving this dish in double shot glasses or cappuccino cups if you don’t have those steel round forms. They are not that easy to shape manually.
• This dish can also be used as a side dish for a meat course – serve it warm of course.
• The last bit of the morel liquid will contain some sediment, pour that away.
• Some morel will come with bits of leafy stem, cut those away as they spoil the bouncy texture of the mushrooms.

 

Pesto Crusted Lamb Chop Medallions

(serves 2)
This is a delightful main course which improves on your run-of-the-mill pan fried lamb chops by a mile. It solves the thousand year old lamb chop connundrum by cooking the tender eye seperately from the tougher bone portion, plus it uses the trimmings to create an incredibly intense sauce. If I must say so myself, the pesto crust works really well with lamb. This recipe does however require a tad more time and effort, but its ooh so worthwhile in the end.

 

Ingredients

1. Lamb Chops (8)
2. Pesto (2T)
3. Parmagiano Reggiano (1T)
4. Bread (1 slice)
5. Garlic (0.5 bulb = 6 cloves) 
6. Fennel Seeds (2T)
7. Mint Leaves (1T)
8. Rosemary (1T)
9. Thyme (1T)
10. Cognac (2T)
11. Woustershire Sauce
12. Dijon Mustard
13. Misc Vegetables 

Preparation – Earlier in the Day

Buy the type of lamb chop which has some meat clinging to the rib end of the bone. Cut each chop into three parts:

• The first part is the round meaty eye, which will become your medallions (chopping board, left). Make sure you trim away most of the white bits as you won’t be cooking the medallion too long.
• The second part is the flank, basically the fleshy portion around the long end of the bone (chopping board, right). You can leave the white bits on for these cuts.
• The third part will be the trimmings (on the plate), basically the bone and chunks of fat and connective tissue.

1. Marinate the medallion and flank pieces in 2T olive oil, 1T cognac, 1T thyme, 1T fennel seeds, 0.5t salt, a pinch of sugar and a dash of woustershire sauce. Lamb is one of the more gamey meats and you should marinate it for a minimum of four hours.
2. Boil the trimmings in a pot, with just enough water to cover everything. Add to the pot, 1T mint leaves, 1T fennel seeds, 1T rosemary, 1T Cognac and 6 garlic cloves. Simmer with the cover on for a minimum of half an hour. Follow up by microwaving the meat and stock on high power, covered, for 3×3 = 9 minutes, allowing the meat to cool between cycles.
3. Leave a piece of bread uncovered in the fridge to dry out.

Preparation - Before the Meal 

1. Cut the piece of bread into little cubes. Toast the cubes into croutons and smash them in a zip-loc bag with the flat end of a meat mallet or rolling pin to produce some fine breadcrumbs.
2. Mix 2T of these breadcrumbs, with 2T of pesto and 1T of finely grated Parmagiano Reggiano. This will form the pesto crust.
3. Pick out the marinated flank portions and pan fry these on low heat with a spot of oil till they are nicley browned. These bits have to be fried as they take much longer to become tender.
4. Set aside the flank pieces, leaving the pan unwashed. Pour the lamb stock through a strainer into the same pan. Boil the stock down until it becomes a thick sauce. Take the opportunity to cook any vegetables you would like to serve with your lamb medallions in the stock as it is thickened. Examples include baby corn, baby carrots or peeled shallots. 
5. When the sauce has thickend, remove the vegetables and stir in one t of dijon mustard. Taste and add salt as required – only at the end.
6. In the meanwhile, spoon the pesto mixture onto the lamb medallions. Its alright for the crust to be thick so use up all of the mixture you made.
7. Oil a baking tray and preheat it. Arrange the medallions in the middle (you should hear a slight sizzle) and then the pre-cooked flank pieces around the edges (as per photo on the right). Cook in a preheated toaster oven (heat on top and bottom) for about 7 minutes, or until the pesto crust begins to bubble and harden.
8. Spoon the sauce onto the serving plate first, followed by the lamb and finally the vegetables. 

Notes

• You have a couple of options regarding the bones. The lamb reduction sauce is very good as it contains all the tastes you normally associate with lamb but can’t apply because of the pesto crust: mint, garlic, rosemary, mustard etc. If you really can’t bother with the sauce, just throw the bones away and use the drippings from the medallions as ‘jus’. Alternatively, you can boil the stock as per above but serve it (still strained) as a mutton broth to go with the medallions.
• I used a toaster oven because it gives just the right heat to form the crust without overcooking the lamb. If you are making portions for more than 2, you can just use the grill in your oven. 
• The microwaving helps melt the remaining fat and connective tissue. If you don’t own a microwave, then you’ll just have to simmer the lamb bones old style for a long time, until the gelatine is released.
• FYI. I grilled the tomatoes with cheese topping seperately. Those were not cooked in the sauce pan with the baby corn.

 

What is Kaya?

 

         1. Hainanese Kaya        2. Nonya Kaya(Home)      3. Nonya Kaya(Store)        4. Hybrid Kaya

Kaya is a custard made with coconut milk that is popular in Singapore and Malaysia. Like regular jam, it is most often used as a bread spread (its technically not a jam since it is not made from fruit) at breakfast and afternoon tea. Because of its sweet taste, Kaya is also used as an ingredient is various local desserts in Southeast Asia from Thailand to Indonesian. If you are from outside the region, think of it as something like creme brulee in a bottle. 

The recipe for making kaya varies from household to household but typically involves cooking a mixture of 10 eggs, 500g of sugar and 500 ml of coconut milk over a double boiler, stirring frequently. Its pretty much the same as making a sabayon or custard, except you stand there cooking and stirring for a very, very long time.

There are two main types of Kaya. The more original variety is Hainanese Kaya (bottle No.1), Hainan being a large island of China. Many Hainanese ventured into Southeast Asia during the hey day of the British Empire. A lot of them worked as cooks (and tailors) in commonwealth cities and aboard British merchant ships where they encounted a thing called jam on toast. Over time, they invented their own ‘jam’, which became Kaya. That’s the reason you won’t find Kaya (or Hainanese Chicken Rice or Hainanese Pork Chop to name a few more examples) anywhere in Hainan today, they were invented by overseas Hainanese. The term Kaya was probably coined by the Malays, who refer to it as Seri Kaya. Hainanese Kaya is made with brown sugar which results in its distinct orangy colour. Some modern commercial formulations use honey instead.

There is another version of Kaya that is green; this is called Nonya Kaya (bottle No.2). How did this originate? Its another complicated story, also related to the Chinese migrants. When early Chinese migrants inter-married with the locals in Malaysia, they formed a sub-community called the Nonya. The Nonya add pandan leaves to a lot of their cuisine and when they learnt to make Kaya, they also added pandan to that. Their varierty of Kaya uses white sugar, but compensates for the loss of the caramelized taste by adding the juice from pandan leaves. This gives Nonya Kaya its unique flavour and fragrance. Commercially, food dye is added to Nonya Kaya (bottle No.3) to give it a darker green colour. Nowadays you can also get a hybrid Kaya (bottle No.4) that is made with both brown sugar and pandan leaves.

Besides spreading it on toast, how else can Kaya be used? Being very sweet, Kaya goes very well with salted butter and you can use it in place of syrup or icing sugar on pancakes, waffles and french toast. Kaya also works well as a filling in a Danish type pastry (for example you could replace the sesame paste of my Sesame Swirl Puffs with Kaya). Finally you can experiment with Kaya in those savoury dishes that require a touch of sweetness, such as in pan fried foie gras.

 

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with Smoked Salmon

(serves 2 full portions)
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, which is spaghetti with garlic and oil, is purportedly the most common pasta dish in Italy. That’s easy to understand why; it’s fast and easy to cook. Basic Spaghetti Aglio e Olio tastes good enough, but with some smoked salmon flakes added into the fray, it tastes even better. If you are into cream-less and cheese-less pasta, this is the recipe for you. And if you like it vegetarian too, this is possible (see notes).  

Ingredients

1. Garlic (8 cloves = 0.5 bulb)
2. Olive Oil (1/3 cup)
3. Smoked Salmon (100g)
4. Spaghetti (200g)
5. Parsley (4T, chopped)
6. Cognac

Preparation 

1. A few hours or the night before, slice your garlic into thin 1 mm pieces. Soak the slices in 1/3 cup of olive oil. This is secret No.1, infusing the oil with garlic ahead of time.
2. Boil a pot of water for the pasta, with 1t of salt and a dash of olive oil.
3. If you are using fresh parsley (Italian is best) chop it into fine bits at this stage.
4. Roll up 100g of smoked salmon and slice the roll once lengthwise to halve the roll, then breadthwise into thin slivers. Soak the salmon in 1/3 cup of water laced with 1T cognac. This is secret No.2, changing the water into brine using the smoked salmon.
5. Put 200g of spaghetti into the pot of boiling water.
6. In a pan, heat the garlic and oil on low heat. While the oil is heating up, take the time to arrange the garlic pieces so they don’t stack. When the thinner pieces start to brown, perhaps after 3 minutes, turn the heat off. The garlic will continue to get darker for a while and you don’t want it to get burnt.
7. When the pasta is half cooked (about 4 minutes, see how the timing matches with the garlic?), strain it and add it to the pan. With heat back on at medium, add the salmon brine, but without the salmon. Sprinkle in 3T of chopped parsley and some black pepper. Toss in the pan till the spaghetti is al dente and the water has dried up.
8. Turn off the fire and immediately add the smoked salmon. Toss again to lightly cook the salmon and after checking for taste (taste pasta together with salmom, smoked salmon is salty), sprinkle on the right amount of salt to bring the dish to life.
9. Plate and garnish with 1T more of chopped parsley. 

Notes

• If you want to make plain Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, i.e. without the salmon, use 1/3 cup of water from the pasta pot instead. You’ll also need to add more salt at the end to compensate. 
• Some people like to add a light sprinkle of chilli flakes. This is permissible. If you are doing so, remember to reduce the amount of black pepper accordingly.
• Do not use parmigiano or another other cheese. This is an American bastardization and cheese is not allowed – not unless you call the result Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with Cheese.
• I usually use 80g of pasta per person but this is a relatively light dish and 100g is more appropriate for a main course.
• Reduce the olive oil to 1/4 cup if you want a lighter pasta. 

 

Candied Yam in Ginger Syrup

(serves 2-3)
Candied Yam in Ginger Syrup. This is a East meets West fusion dessert inspired by the rustic Chinese dessert ‘Sweet Potato Sugar Soup’ that pairs the spicy bite of ginger with the texture and sweetness of yam. The beauty of my recipe is there are no timing issues, as the yam and syrup are cooked seperately. Thus the yam will be exactly as soft as it should be, the ginger flavoured syrup will be as thick and as sweet as it needs. Pretty much this is a recipe that can’t go wrong.    

Ingredients

1. Yam (300g)
2. Ginger (50g)
3. Butter (10g)
4. Muscovado Sugar (4T)
5. Cinnamon Powder
6. Rum
7. Vanilla Ice Cream

Preparation 

1. Peel 300g of yam and cut them into half inch cubes. At the same time peel 50g of ginger and cut this into thin long slices easily distinguishable from the yam cubes. For this recipe, the older the ginger the better.
2. Place the yam and ginger into a pot and add water till everything is submerged. Simmer covered for half an hour (start counting from when the water boils).
3. Pour out the yam stock into a container. Pick out the ginger pieces and discard them. Arrange the yam cubes onto the tray of a toaster oven.
4. Cut several thin slices of butter and plop these over the yam cubes. Toast the yam cubes for 15 minutes. You should end up with buttery yam cubes which are firm on the outside, but still moist and soft on the inside.
5. While the yam is toasting, pour the yam stock back into the pot. Add 5T of muscovado sugar, 2T of rum and boil the stock down til it is a thin runny syrup (remember it will thicken further when it cools).  Recombine the yam with the syrup and refrigerate before serving.
6. Dust each serving generously with cinnamon powder. I would normally add a scoop of mascarpone or vanilla ice cream with each serving.  

Notes

• If you don’thave muscovado sugar, you can substitute demerara sugar. Don’t use those brown crystal sugars which are nothing more than refined white sugar dyed brown, or you won’t get the taste of caramel. 
• If you like your desserts less sweet, use 3T of sugar, but be forewarned, you will end up with less syrup. If you like things sweet, using 5T of sugar is no problem.
• This recipe is perfectly scalable; you you can just double or triple the quantities. If you are scaling up or if you don’t have a toaster oven, simply roast the yam in your oven.

 

Chestnut and Garlic Soup

(serves 6-8)
There is nothing like some hot Chestnut Soup to warm you up when its chilly outside. The one problematic thing with chestnut soup is the sweetness of chestnuts. When it comes to this particular genre of soups, its very easy to cross the line from soup to dessert. Thats where the garlic and pancetta in my recipe come in.  All said, this is a simple recipe, with only a few ingredients, but the result is a whole bowl of yummy goodness.  

Ingredients

1. Peeled Chestnuts (600g)
2. Pancetta (150g)
3. Garlic (8 cloves = 0.5 bulb)
4. Chicken Stock Cubes (2)
5. Bourbon
6. Nutmeg
7. Oregano
8. Sage

Preparation 

1. Seal the peeled chestnuts in a gallon zip-loc bag with most of the air squeezed out. Bash the chestnuts with a meat mallet or rolling pin till the chestnut is reduced to little bits.
2. In a pot with 4 cups of boiling water, dissolve 2 chicken stock cubes.
3. Add the chestnuts to the pot and simmer for ninety minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. In the meanwhile peel half a bulb of garlic and put the cloves through the garlic press for mincing. 
5. Next, fry 150g of cubed pancetta on low heat in a pan until the fat has pretty much melted and the pancetta begins to crisp. Add the garlic and continue to fry til the garlic starts to brown nicely. Immediately turn off the heat and add a cup of water to stop the garlic from getting burnt.
6. When the ninety minutes is up, your chestnut bits should have soften nicely. Blend the chestnut pieces into a watery puree using an immersion blender. Chestnuts are pretty tough so you’ll need to stir the blender around the pot on high power for about 30 seconds to whip the soup into a nice creamy texture.
7. Add the contents of the pan into the pot and bring to a simmer again. Add 2t sage, 1t nutmeg and 1t oregano, 2T of bourbon. Maintain the simmer for fifteen minutes so the crispy pancetta can soak in some moisture.
8. Towards the end, add water to bring your soup to the consistency you like. Sprinkle with black pepper, taste and add salt til the soup tastes just right. Garnish with a bit of chopped parsley.

Notes

• Nowadays you can just buy peeled chestnuts but if you are starting off with raw chestnuts, cut a cross on the shell (so they don’t explode) and roast them in an oven for 20 minutes at about 200^oC before peeling them.   
• Chestnuts are naturally sweet so you’ll want to use the smoked or affumicata type of pancetta. Pancetta is seasoned with lots of herbs so they release a really nice complex taste into the soup. Don’t be tempted to drain off the oil that melts into the pan, that’s where the flavour lies. There is more than enough starch from the chestnuts to emulsify the oil so your soup won’t be oily.
• Tip: add a teaspoon of miso in place of salt for that extra dimension of flavour.

 

Orzo in Blue Cheese and Pesto Sauce

(serves 4 full portions)
Orzo (a.k.a. Risoni a.k.a. Puntalette) is a great pasta variety I recently discovered. It looks like risotto and you cook it like a risotto, but the bouncy texture of these rice shaped pasta pieces is a nice change. Like in risotto, you have to use strong flavours to compliment orzo and in this recipe I have chosen a blue cheese and pesto as the main flavours. The dish is finally topped off with pine nuts and poppy seeds, a perfect balance of taste and texture.   

Ingredients

1. Gorgonzola (140g)
2. Gouda (50g)
3. Grana Padano (30g)
4. Orzo (250g)
5. Cream (1/4 cup)
6. Chardonnay (1/2 cup)
7. Chicken meat (350g)
8. Pine Nuts (1/2 cup)
9. Pesto
10. Poppy Seeds
11. Basil
12. Cognac

Preparation 

1. You cannot use stock cubes for this recipe as the stock needs to be unsalted. Make some chicken stock ahead of time. Simply boil one chicken leg with thigh, or an equivalent amount of other cuts or bones in 3 cups of water for a while and leave to cool covered.
2. Boil some water in a non-stick frying pan and turn the fire off. Stir 250g of Orzo in the pan for 15 seconds and then drain the water. This will get rid of some of the loose flour it is coated in.
3. Portion out the cheese next. I’ve picked the 3Gs for this recipe; The easiest way to get the right weight of each type of cheese is to look at the total weight of each package and cut out the appropriate portion by volume. There’s no need to actually weigh the cheese. Remove the wax rind of the Gouda and then cut it into 1cm cubes. Grate the Grana Padano coarsely.The Gorgonzola will fall apart easily, so there is no need to do anything to it.
4. Pour the 2 cups of hot chicken stock and bring to a simmer again. Add 1/2 cup white wine and 3 heaping t of pesto into the pan. Keep on a low simmer, stirring once in a while.
5. When half of the liquid has been absorbed/evapourated, add 1/4 cup of cream. Melt the  the Gorgonzola in the cream first, and when that has melted the grated Grana Padano. Finally the Gouda, stirring to prevent clumping.
6. Continue to simmer the mixture, testing the softness of the orzo frequently by trying a grain. I usually don’t have to, but add a bit of water if the pan gets too dry. When the orzo is just tender to the bite, turn off the fire and mix in the pine nuts and 2t of chopped basil. 
7. Finally, the seasoning; add 1 flat t of sugar, a generous sprinkle of black pepper and 1T cognac. Stir, taste and add salt incrementally. The inherent saltiness will depend on your cheese so add a little at a time till the flavour is just right. You may not need to add any at all.
8. Plate the pasta. Sprinkle on 2T of poppy seeds and a bit more chopped basil as garnishing.

Notes

• You can swap in other cheeses but you have to replace each cheese with one of the same type. Its always 140g blue cheese, 50g of melting and 30g of grating cheese. You can check out what the alternatives are in my Cheese Page.
• The package I bought labled orzo as Puntalette. Maybe its because orzo is Italian for barley and not rice. A third name for orzo is Risoni and this mean rice in Italian. Regardless, you can use all three types for this recipe.

 

Thickening Soup with Congee

Congee is a porridge made from simmering rice till it falls apart. Unlike the gruel which Oliver Twist was subject to, Congee is actually considered to be a quality dish in the Far East and in Western parlance is more like a meat or seafood stew. In some versions, like Japanese Okayu and Teochew  Moi, congee is made with the inividual rice kernals left intact. In most cases though, and the Cantonese are probably most famous for this, Congee is considered well made only if the rice is simmered till it disintegrates completely, leaving a silky smooth thick rice gruel. This type of congee is great for thickening soups and stews.

Wheat flour is troublesome to use as a thickener for soups as flour needs to be cooked at above the tempeature of boiling water before it looses that raw flour taste. It can’t be added to a soup directly, you have to fry it in butter to make a roux first. Corn starch creates an undesirable gooey texture. It also has a tendency to seperate and loose its viscouscity with time and after boiling so it can only be added at the last moment and all the soup must be consumed immediately. Is there something else we can use to make our soups thicker and richer?

Cantonese style congee on the other hand has none of these issues and it is quite a healthy alternative. It also has a very subtle plain taste which will only enrich and not alter your soups primary flavour. Although you can use congee to thicken any soup, it is best used to with chowder or puree type soups. For pure cream soups like cream of chicken or oysters florentine soup, you’d be better of making a roux from butter and flour for that distinct buttery taste.

Both bowls contain 1 tablespoon of the same rice boiled for exactly fifteen minutes. The rice in the bowl on the left was pre-frozen and is halfway turned to mush. The rice in the bowl on the right however was left unfrozen and the individual grains are still clearly intact.

There is however a well known shortcoming with congee, which is perhaps the reason it is not often suggested as a soup thickener. It takes a long time for rice to disintegrate completely, perhaps upwards of 2 hours of slow simmering. Some people use an immersion blender to shorten the cooking time but that means cooking the congee seperately and besides you only need a very small amount thickening purposes.

Let me give you a better way. Soak the rice for five minutes and then freeze it in a zip lock bag. Water inside the grain will freeze and expand, and as it does it will weaken the integrity of the rice kernals, making them fall apart more easily. It doesn’t matter how long it is frozen, for an hour or overnight.

Finally some details about the actual process. There is no need to boil some congee seperately, just add raw rice when you are boiling the stock. The rice should pretty much disintegrate in about half an hour if it was has been frozen before. If it’s a stew or chowder, just add the rice directly at the beginning. It’s as simple as that. How much should you add? Rice expands to many times its original size when hydrated and I would say up to (i.e. sometimes less than) 1 tablespoon per cup of liquid. 

Notes

• Use only oriental type rice, preferably the short grained type. Japanese rice is one such type. These will breakdown faster. Tough varieties, like those you use for making risotto, and defintely wild rice, are unsuitable. Check out my rice page for details on types of rice grains.

 

Tuna Tartare with Scallion

(serves 3, or 6 mini portions, or 9 canapes)
This tartare recipe using raw tuna and scallion is a nice fusion cuisine appetizer of my own creation. It merges the Western concept of marinated chopped raw meat with Japanese sushi where raw fish is sometimes served with scallion. I have 2 secrets to making raw tuna delicious.  Firstly, adding cooked tuna to your tartare gives it the right bite and texture. Secondly, a creamy frosting made with caramelized scallion and turmeric provides the right balance for the dish. 

Ingredients

1. Fresh Tuna Fillet (160g)
2. Chopped Scallion (1/3 cup)
3. Mascarpone (60g)
4. White Bread (2 slices)
5. Turmeric 
6. Hon Dashi Pellets
7. Sesame Oil
8. Port
9. French Mustard

Preparation 

1. Dissolve 0/5t of Hon Dashi Pellets in 5T of hot water to make some concentrated tuna stock. Allow to cool.
2. Julienne your scallion (aka spring onion) into very fine rings. You are only using the bottom quarter of each scallion stalk, which is the fleshy light green to white part, so keep this in mind when you are buying the scallion. You can keep the leafy part for decoration if you like.
3. Cut the tuna into small cubes and then proceed to chop it into a coarse mince. You want to get it down to the level where there are no large chunks but you can still make out individual pieces of fish instead of just mush. At this point reserve 1/4 of the tuna for cooking. Add 1/3 of the julienned scallion to the remaining tuna and finish off with one last round of chopping to mix them properly.
4. In a bowl, stir together 2T sesame oil with 1t mustard, 1t port, 0.5t fined ground black pepper and a pinch of salt. Marinate the tuna scallion mince in this and then keep it covered with cling film in the fridge.
5. Stir the reserved portion of the tuna into the cold tuna stock. This will stop it from clumping together when it is cooked.
6. Fire up a frying pan with a few T of oil. Use a high flame. When the pan is hot, add the ‘wet’ tuna and stir fry. Press down with a spatula to break up the clumps as much as possible. When all the liquid has dried up and the tuna starts to brown, scoop out the tuna and allow it to cool. Mix the cooked tuna into the raw tuna after it has cooled.
7. In the same pan, fry the remaining scallion on low heat in a few T of oil. When the scallion starts to caramelize a bit, turn off the heat but leave the scallion in the pan for a further 3 minutes so it can continue to brown. Finally, add 60g of mascarpone (1/4 of a small tub) followed by 0.5t turmeric and a pinch of salt. Stir till everything is evenly mixed and allow to cool in the fridge, also covered with cling film.
8. Cut each slice of bread into 3 pieces and grill them in the toaster oven till they are somewhat burnt. Use a knife to scrape away the burnt layer and corners. This will give you a thin hard toast that can support the wet tuna. The scrapings can also be used for decoration if you like.
9. Plate the tartare, the scallion cream at the last possible moment so everything remains cold. You can either arrange everything on the toast as I have done above, or leave that to your guests. 

Notes

• The most important thing to ensure is you have sushi grade tuna, you are after all eating this raw. The translucent bright red cut (Maguro) is sufficient, there is no need to splurge on the fatty belly fillet (Toro).
• The proper way to hand-mince tuna: use a heavy un-serrated knife. Repeatedly hammer down lightly on the tuna with the blade from left to right and then fold the tuna over on itself. Repeat, but at right angles to the first round of chopping. Repeat a couple of times.
• Bread does not cut well after it is toasted so you won’t be able to use a regular toaster. Use the grill in your regular oven if you don’t have a toaster oven. You could also use commercially sold Melba toast I suppose.
• You may also consider layering the tatare and scallion cream in a small glass, with the toast plunged in like a straw.
• If you don’t have Hon Dashi, just make the stock the hard way, by boiling tuna and the left over leafy part of the scallion in salted water.