Spicy Beef & Black Bean Shoyu Ramen

By    :      Mymy Suajico - Santiago 蔡马安

Contrary to the popular belief, Ramen is not Japanese but Chinese in origin. Ramen is from the Chinese word: lamian (拉麺), meaning "hand-pulled noodles." Ramen was made popular though by the Japanese, serving this Chinese-style wheat noodles with meat or seafood broth, flavored with soy sauce or miso and topped with spring onions or seaweeds.

This recipe was written down with the intention to refute the notorious reputation of Ramen as instant out-of-the –plastic deep fried noodles, sprinkled with dehydrated vegetables & artificially flavored monosodium glutamate. Real Ramen is in fact a complete balance meal in a bowl, with real vegetables & spices, protein and fresh wheat noodles which is of course, not fried.

Ingredients:

4                                          eggs, hardboiled
10 oz (285 g)                   fresh wheat noodles
1 lb.                                     Teriyaki cut beef
1 cup                                   white onions, thinly sliced      
2 tbsp                                 ginger, julienne slices
1                                           Romaine Lettuce, sliced
8 cups (2 liters)              homemade beef broth
½                                        Jalapeno peppers (or any hot pepper), thinly sliced
1 bundle                            Enoki Mushroom
5 pcs                                   Shitake, quartered
4 tablespoons                black bean paste
2 tbsp.                               garlic, thinly sliced & fried
5 tsp.                                  Sesame oil
½ cup                                 Kikkoman soy sauce or any soy sauce
To taste                            Fish sauce or anchovy sauce

Procedure:

In a stock pot, pour 2 liters of water, drop in beef slices & cook until very tender

Add in the onions, ginger, shitake, black bean paste & cook for 3 min.

Follow in enoki mushrooms, noodles, jalapeno peppers, soy sauce & fish sauce, simmer for another 3 min.

Put one egg in every serving bowl, lay fresh lettuce on the side – incorporate noodles, broth & components, top with fried garlic.

enjoy slurping your Shoyu Ramen!