Yakibuta Ramen (Pork Noodle Soup)

I'm a great fan of the youtube series "Cooking with the Dog" which details great recipes and steps for making Japanese dishes. My favourite of all time is Yakibuta Ramen, however I've found that there is a little bit of a problem with the recipe that is detailed there - frankly - the pork rib that you end up with is dry as hell and practically flavourless. The soup is fantastic but the actual pork garnish is really disappointing. So here's my take on this dish using belly pork instead of pork rib. Although health freaks will scream at the amount of fat on the belly slices, the actual cooking process actually eliminates most of it, while the remaining ensures that the meat doesn't dry out and lose its flavour.

Ingredients

4 Slices of Belly Pork
1 hard boiled Egg
Soy sauce
Mirin
1 leek (Welsh onion)
2 Oyster Mushrooms
1 Spring Onion (Scallion)
1 thumb sized piece of ginger
Brown sugar

noodles

Dashi - 1 slice of dried Kombu seaweed, 1 tablespoon dried fish

Method:

1. Combine water with kombu and bring to a boil. Remove the kombu as it comes to a boil and then add 1 tablespoon of dried fish and simmer for about a minute before removing them. Set dashi aside.

2. Combine equal amounts of soy sauce and mirin in a small plastic bag and put the peeled boiled egg inside and tie off.

3. Combine water, pork, the ginger, mushrooms (crushed once with the flat of a knife blade) and the green part of the leek and allow to simmer for about an hour, perhaps an hour and a half.

4. Score the white part of the leek once lengthwise and unwrap the sheets. Dice into fine matchsticks. Remove the mushrooms, pork belly and leek and ginger from the soup. Throw away the ginger and green leek head. Dice the mushrooms.

5. Allow the pork belly slices to cool on a wire rack. Add 5 tablespoons of soy sauce and 5 tablespoons of mirin to the pork soup and about 2 and a half tablespoons of brown sugar and then reduce until the mixture resembles watery teriyaki sauce - it must be slightly thick but not over-watery.

6. Put the pork belly into the reduction and then turn off the heat, the pork will absorb the soup. After a few minutes then remove and fry on high heat on a skillet/grill to lock in the flavour.

7. pour the reduction into the dashi stock and add your noodles to the soup and then boil until they are cooked.

8. Add the pork, leek, egg (halved) and mushrooms into a bowl. If you have Kamaboko/narutomaki pre-made or bought then add as garnish as well. Fill with soup and noodles and serve.