(Mostly) Pork Spare Rib Tonkotsu, Shouyu Tare, Duck fat and scallion aroma oil, Rib Meat Chāshū, maitake mushroom, soft boiled egg, and green onions & garlic. Served with a Kirin Ichiban. Pictures of the broth pre-tare included.
When I first started looking into making ramen at home, I had some trouble sourcing ingredients, with the closest asian grocery store 100 miles away. While I eventually settled for buying 60lbs of pork femurs and necks from a friend working at a restaurant, I wondered if there was an easier way. Enter a rack of pork spare ribs sitting the freezer once intended for smoking. One “Make room in the freezer, you have over 40lbs of pork bones in there!” later, the ribs (and cartilage) were repurposed for an attempt at tonkotsu. I didn’t quite enough ribs for a full batch, so it’s more of a 70% ribs tonkotsu (the other 30% femurs).
The end result was pretty good! Didn’t set as firmly as femur & neck tonkotsu (not as much collagen I suspect), but the taste and feel was good. I also used some of the meat trimmed from the ribs to make a chāshū, which came out decent. If I have enough ribs in the future for a full batch, I will try again to see if 100% spare rib tonkotsu works, so once I’m out of femurs and necks I don’t have to spend too much money to stuff my freezer full of them, haha.
by MagicSwordGuy