Pork bones held at a hard rolling boil for five hours until the collagen and fat emulsify into an opaque, lip-sticking broth. Served with braised chashu, a soft marinated egg and thin noodles that go from pan to bowl in ninety seconds.
7 Steps
Cover the trotters and neck bones with cold water, bring to a rolling boil and hold it for 10 minutes. Drain, then rinse every piece under cold running water, scrubbing off the grey scum and any clotted blood with your fingers. Scrub the pot too. This step is the difference between a clean white broth and a muddy grey one.
Return the bones to the pot, cover with 4 litres of fresh water and bring to a hard, violent boil. Keep it there, lid ajar, for 4 hours — a gentle simmer gives you thin clear stock, and it is the agitation that emulsifies the fat and collagen into that opaque white soup. Top up with boiling water whenever the bones start to show.
Add the halved onion, garlic and sliced ginger and boil for a final hour. Strain through a sieve, pressing hard on the solids. You should have around 2 litres of broth thick enough to leave a film on a spoon.
While the broth boils, roll the pork belly into a tight cylinder and tie it at 2 cm intervals. Brown it all over in a dry pan, then simmer in the soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar and 400 ml water for 2 hours, turning occasionally, until a skewer slides through with no resistance. Cool it in the liquid, then chill until firm enough to slice thinly. Keep the braising liquid.
For the tare, warm the soy sauce, sake, kombu and dried shiitake to about 60 C, take off the heat and leave to steep for 30 minutes before straining. Soak the wood ear in warm water until soft and shred it.
Lower the eggs straight from the fridge into boiling water for exactly 6 minutes 30 seconds, then plunge into iced water. Peel and marinate in the reserved chashu liquid for at least 4 hours.
To assemble, put 2 tablespoons of tare into each hot bowl, pour over 350 ml of boiling broth and whisk. Boil the noodles for 60 to 90 seconds, drain them hard so no water dilutes the soup, and nest them in the bowl. Top with sliced chashu, a halved egg, wood ear, spring onion and nori, and serve immediately.
Make the broth and the chashu a day ahead — both are better for a night in the fridge, and it turns a marathon into a twenty minute assembly job. If you are short on time, a pressure cooker at high pressure for 90 minutes gets you maybe eighty percent of the way there.
Comments (3)
pressure cooker for 90 minutes instead. thinner but honestly good enough on a weeknight
do the bones genuinely need the ten minute parboil first?
yes. skip it and the broth goes grey and tastes muddy no matter how long you boil it
five hours at a rolling boil. my windows are still steamed up but the broth came out white