First try at Kitakata ramen

Last year, I had the chance of spending a week in Aizu and fell in love with the simplicity of Kitakata style ramen so I had to try making it at home.

It's a 50-50% blend of chicken broth (with an addition of pork feet for the mouth feel) and heavily fishy dashi (following ramen_lord's kitakata ramen recipe), with shoyu tare (a mix of three different soy sauce, including a 3 years old one, hence the colour, mirin, dashi, salt, sugar and katuobushi) and pork fat from the chashu making.

The noodles are higher hydration (42%) and high in kansui (again following ramen_lord's advices) but I cut them a bit too thin I think.

Overall, it's one of the most "handmade" bowl I've ever made as I had to make niboshi from fresh anchovies and also did the menma from scratch by first fermenting and dehydrating bamboo shoots. They didn't "rehydrate" as well as I had hoped but once in the soup, they complimented well the broth. In the end, pretty happy with the bowl but next time, I'll probably go for a tare with more regular soy sauces, the aged one adding a bit too much colour and flavour to the tare.