Ramen soup base

This challenging recipe is the foundation formaking the two kinds of ramen: shoyu and miso

IN ONE popular Makati restaurant, the story goes, the staff will serve their rich, delectable ramen only if they still have the soup stock that goes with it. Once they’ve ran out of their soup stock (which could happen late in the evening), they won’t serve ramen to any customer. Not even, it has been rumored, if the customer is a political bigwig.

While that may sound petulant, it’s understandable, considering the time and effort that go into the making of the soup base for ramen. It takes hours of patient, slow simmering tomake a good ramen soup base, and the above-mentioned restaurant probably doesn’t want to serve its ramen without the substantial, flavorful broth it is known for.

At a cooking class held recently at The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center, chef Seiji Kamura demonstrated the complexities ofmaking ramen soup base. A longtime resident of the Philippines, Kamura attended the Tokyo Cooking Academy and trained in Lyons, France.

Aside from being a culinary consultant and chef-demonstrator, he has written two popular cookbooks: “Japanese Cookbook for Filipinos” and “Secrets of Japanese Cooking.”

It takes three hours to simmer the stock for ramen soup, we learned from Kamura that day. Factor in the hours spent shopping for and preparing the ingredients and you’ll have practically a whole day’s work.

And that’s just for the soup base. You’ll also need to prepare the other ingredients needed for the soup, such as the noodles, the shoyu or miso base and the toppings.

No wonder there’s been such a craze in Manila for thismuchloved Japanese noodle dish. If it takes that much time and effort to make good ramen stock, we’re probably all better off ordering ramen in a restaurant, where a well-trained kitchen staff has already done the job of extracting the rich flavors from the pork and chicken bones and all the attendant ingredients.

Still, for those who are feeling adventurous, here’s Kamura’s recipe for the ramen soup base. It’s the foundation for making the two kinds of ramen: shoyu and miso.

As with my other DIY recipes, I’ve kitchen-tested this—and it’s probably one of the most challenging recipes I’ve tried. Note that this is just the soup base. Although already flavorful as it is, you’ll need to add other ingredients to make either the shoyu or miso ramen.

Next week, DIY will feature the recipe for the shoyu ramen, using this basic soup base. Meantime, you can have a foretaste of this delightful, fullbodied soup base by using it to prepare any ramen or noodle soup. Just season the soup base to tastewith soy sauce and dish it out in a bowl of cooked noodles, then add your choice of toppings (eggs, vegetables, etc).

The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center is at 8/F, Liberty Bldg., 835 A. Arnaiz Ave., Makati City; tel. 8921185, 8925011 local 108, 0947-8352290. For more information on other courses, visit www.themayakitchen.com or e-mail contactus @themayakitchen.com.