November 30, 2021
Leftover Chicken Ramen by Barry Horne
Ingredients: serves 4
1 leftover chicken carcass
400g leftover chicken meat
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
4 black cardamom pods
50g garlic
50g ginger
1 bunch spring onions
ramen noodles or any good noodle
4 good quality eggs
100ml soy sauce
2tbsp miso
1tbsp gochujang
1tbsp mirin
2 sheets of Nori seaweed to garnish
chilli oil (optional)
Method:
Start by putting the chicken carcass in a pot, break this up a bit to make sure it’s going to release all of that goodness from the bones.
Add in the cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, roughly chopped garlic and ginger and the roughly torn spring onion, (chop off the green tops to reserve for the garnish).
Cover with cold water and place on a high heat, bring to the boil. As soon as it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to a medium low. Leave this to simmer away for at least 2 hours.
In the meantime you can prepare everything for the ramen.
Make a Tare (pronounced tah-reh), to add the a large amount of the flavour to the ramen. To do this add the soy, miso, gochujang and mirin into a bowl. Keep this to one side and we will come back to it later.
Pre-cook the noodles and run them under cold water to stop the cooking process.
Get good quality eggs and soft boil all four of them, usually about 6 mins 30sec for a good soft boil. Place these in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar and water to make soy cured eggs, if you prefer.
After the stock has simmered for 2 hours strain it into a clean pot, discard the carcass and the vegetables (it’s done it’s job).
To assemble the ramen get 4 large bowls and place a tablespoon of the tare into each bowl, followed by a ladle or two of the stock, then add the cooked noodles, some of your leftover chicken, (can be warmed this in a pan prior), sprinkle the reserved chopped green of the spring onion and the soft boiled egg and place the nori on the side of the bowl, drizzle with some chilli oil if you fancy.
Get stuck in and enjoy.