Iekei Ramen

Yokohama Iekei Ramen – My attempt to recreate the bowl I had at Ramen Taniseya in Shimbashi, Tokyo. Iekei is a mixture of tonkotsu (pork bone) and chicken shoyu soup. It becomes golden on top from all the chiyu (chicken fat) used as aroma oil. It’s a quite simple soup, but has a complexity to it that makes it craveable. It’s been two months since my last trip to Japan and for some reason this is the bowl I kept craving the most, so I had to try and make it at home. Man, making tonkotsu but takes a really long time. Those bones gotta break and split to release that goodness that turns the soup milky white. My cook process started the night before in a pressure cooker, and I just tried to let those bones go as long as possible. The next morning I transferred the bones into a bigger stockpot and added chicken carcasses to it and let it go even longer.

Using my new noodle machine, I was finally able to make lower hydration noodles at 33%. The outcome was pretty great and looking forward to messing around with more recipes at a lower hydration. SO MUCH spinach was boiled to get enough for the few bowls I made. A simple unmarinated egg made it into the bowl. I always save chicken fat from previous soups and I’m thankful I did, cause I used a lot of it for this one! Also made a simple shoyu tare that same day.
All in all, overall pleased with the end result. Noodles were great, soup was simple, but delicious. Of course had to finish off the bowl with some rice (ライス) on the side.