Lazy Pork Ramen

I love Wagamamas. I was always a ginger chicken udon kind of girl but then I discovered their pork ramen and I was hooked. It was the tea stained egg and the crispiness of the pork that made me try it and my gosh it is delicious. I was craving it this weekend and looked up a recipe. The recipe I found was very long and involved with 12 hours to make stock and 3 hours to roast pork. I couldn’t be doing with it (even thought I am sure if you have the time it is totally worth it) so I used it as an inspiration but totally changed it. This is my cheat’s ramen recipe and it hit the spot. It wasn’t quite Wagamamas but it was damn tasty.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

• 350 g of pork shoulder meat, sliced thinly
• 2 pork stock cubes
• 1 herb stock pot (or any herbs of your choice)
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 2-3 tbsp of miso paste
• 2 tbsp of ramen paste (I found it in my local supermarket, don’t stress about the stock or pastes, use what you have and make about 2l of delicious stock)
• 40 g of ginger paste or lots of freshly grated ginger
• 500 ml of Japanese beer
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1.5-2 l of water (depending on how much soup you’d like)
• Salt & Pepper
• Spring onions, sliced
• 2 eggs, hard boiled, de-shelled and halved
• Red chili sauce (~1 tsp and then add more once you have served it, if you’d like it to have more of a chili hit)
• Bean sprouts
• Egg noodles to serve 4 (or any noodles you like)
• A handful of fresh spinach

Method:

1. Place the stock cubes, stock pots, soy sauce, miso paste, ramen paste, ginger (paste), beer, garlic and water into a large sauce pan and season with a little salt and pepper (add more later, to taste). Begin to bring it to the boil.
2. Heat a frying pan and cook the pork slices until they begin to brown on one side and then turn them over and cook the other side (you may need to do this in batches).
3. Add the pork to the stock and leave it to simmer for at least 30 minutes.
4. Add the chili sauce, bean sprouts and spring onions, followed by the noodles and cook the noodles as instructed (mine take 4 minutes) in the stock.
5. You may want to warm your egg halves in the stock but remove them before serving as they begin to break up.
6. Serve in large bowls with half an egg and a small handful of fresh spinach on top.