Garlicky Miso Ramen

The perfect food for social distancing! : D Joking aside, even if the following recipe with its 20 cloves of garlic for two servings may sound a little extreme, the garlic loses a lot of its spiciness and the effect on your breath from the long baking in the oven and just gives the broth one incredibly tasty, spicy note and a little creaminess. An absolutely great channel on Instagram, tokenbento, posted a vegan pork belly a few weeks ago, which she found in an Asian market and which I haven't gotten out of my head since then. Now I finally found it in my favorite Asian market and absolutely had to use it as a topping for these ramen. You can of course take whatever you want as a topping, but if you should feel like vegan, roasted pork belly, I can only recommend this recipe from Token:

www.bento-lunch-blog.blogspot.com/2018/09/rezept-veganer-knuspriger-schweinebauch.html

Ingredients:

20 cloves of garlic (about 75g peeled cloves)

20g oil, preferably heat-resistant, e.g. peanut, soy or rapeseed

600g light broth or dashi

35g miso (I recommend light miso paste, but any other should taste good too)

2 servings of ramen noodles

Some tare

Some spice oil, for example my chilli spice oil

Toppings of your choice, I recommend carrots, spring onions, sprouts, fresh chilli, some coriander and some seitan or the pork belly from Token or bought ones and, if you like it very elaborate, also egg halves marinated in soy sauce, mirin and a small shot sake

Preparation:

The whole thing is actually super simple and of course, like most ramen dishes, can be varied great.

If you don't have a homemade dashi, just make a very light vegetable broth. No chili oil on hand? Take some sesame oil or any other spice oil you like.

You can of course vary the topping, just as your heart desires.

But for the incredibly delicious broth, let's start with the garlic. It is peeled and then put in an ovenproof dish together with the oil in the oven for 30 minutes at 150°C. I turned it around every 10 minutes so that it got a nice color from all sides.

While the garlic was in the oven, I marinated a few "eggs halves" that I had prepared beforehand in a spicy mixture of soy sauce, water, mirin and a tiny dash of sake so that they get a nice color on the outside like the classic ramen eggs .

It is important that the top should be in the marinade, otherwise it will lose its beautiful white color.

When the garlic is ready, you can add it to the broth and bring everything to the boil. Be sure to add the oil from the mold or save as a spice oil for later drizzling on the ramen. It took on a wonderful garlic note.

When everything is boiling, puree the garlic broth with a hand blender.

Now is almost the time when you can put on your pasta and prepare the remaining toppings.

I seared the "pork belly" on all sides and then glazed it with a mixture of 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon sake and 1 tablespoon water.

Almost all components are then actually ready, only the miso paste has to be stirred into the no longer boiling broth.

The easiest way to do this is to stir it into the broth through a sieve. I would generally use a light miso paste for the recipe, but it tasted fantastic even with this dark one.

Now all you have to do is cut into the "meat", fill the eggs and drain the pasta.

Now put 1-2 tablespoons of tare in your favorite ramen bowls, divide the broth and noodles in it and garnish the whole thing with your delicious toppings. Spread a little more chili or garlic oil over it and the ramen are ready.

Guten Appetit!

If you've read this far, you might have noticed that I'm not running any adds, to improve your reading experience and because I deeply believe, that vegan recipes should be accesible to anyone.

But if you want to invite me on a virtual cup of fairtrade coffee via my PayPal.Me Link, I wouldn't say no. It would mean the world to me and helps me to keep buying ingredients for even more recipes. Thank you for cooking something vegan. 💜