Authentic Japanese Tonkotsu Ramen with Aburi Chashu

Dry noodles need to rest in advance for 40 minutes.

Place pork belly 500g in cooking pot, add water 300ml and cooking sake 100ml, start stove at medium heat and bring to boil, remove scum and continue to boil for 10 min, turn the meat and boil for another 10 min, stop fire and cover the pot leave overnight in room temperature.

Next day, remove the oil that surfaced in the pot, add ginger 3 pieces, koikuchi shoyu 70ml, mirin 30ml, and sugar 2 tbsp, start stove at medium fire, turn the meat to marinate evenly, cover the pot and continue to simmer until sauce becomes caramelized and meat becomes braised, with a sheen.

Add water 250ml into a pot, add mussels 200g into pot, boil at medium heat and continue to boil until only 150ml of water remains, strain the remaining dashi.

Add the dashi made from mussels into pot, add usukuchi shoyu 100ml, koikuchi shoyu 30ml, thai fish sauce 20ml, hon mirin 50ml, cooking sake 30ml, apple vinegar 20ml, sake kasu 50g, honey 1 tbsp, and sea salt 10g, start stove and stir to mix, when sauce is evenly mixed, continue to heat until sauce boils, stop fire and add rishiri kombu 1 piece, store overnight in the refrigerator.

Add pork bones 1.7kg into water 2.8l in a large pot, add pork leg 2 pieces, start stove at high heat and bring to boil, remove scum and continue boiling at high heat for 20 min, switch to low fire and simmer 2 hours, pour out about 90% of the soup into a separate pot and leave aside, add water until it is at the same level as before, add pork fat 1 piece, start stove at high fire, continue boiling for 90 min at high fire, when pork fat become soft, cut into small pieces, when pork is no longer covered in water, add more water, continue to boil until the soup become milky and white in colour, take about half of the soup from earlier on and add into the boiling pot, boil for about 30 min, add the remaining half of the soup, continue to boil about 40 min, you can boil longer to get creamier soup, strain soup.

Add water 90ml, add kansui 3g and salt 3g, stir well to mix, ramen flour 300g, slowly add and stir in the liquid mixture, put into ziplock, wait 40 min and flatten with roller, cut into thin noodles, for tonkotsu ramen it is best to use thin noodles.

Dice spring onions, using a kitchen torch, scorch the sliced chashu.

Add ramen sauce 30ml into a bowl, noodles 130g boil for 1 min, add soup 300ml, add cooked noodles, add torched chashu, sliced black fungus, menma, and spring onions, complete.