.............
It's hard to get good legit ramen in the US. Most GI's are familiar with Korean style spicy ramen, which are basically Chinese inspired noodle dishes using classic Korean flavorings using kimchee, sesame oil, miso, and fermented pepper paste. You can make the broth even more savory by using a pork based broth and also by frying / charring the onions, meat and garlic in sesame oil.
Japanese tonkatsu ramen and shoyu ramen is the stuff that became the "ramen" we know today. True tonkatsu ramen is a pain to make. It requires hours of boiling charred onions, garlic and pork with chicken bones and pork bones for atleast 8 hours. Then a pork ham is charred and added to the broth with the soy eggs, picked bamboo shoots and a blacked garlic oil that is made by toasting garlic puree in sesame oil until it turns into a black slag. It's really an eye opening experience once you've had it and you'll crave it the rest of your life, heh. It's hard to get good tonkatsu ramen made the right way without any corners cut. Even in places like SF and Seattle, shops will simply serve pork broth with some noodles and call it done. it's still good, but doesn't compare to the real stuff made the right way.
Shoyu ramen is pork based, but less rich and savory and a good part of the broth is made with soy sauce as the base. Also very good and it's very similar to tonkatsu ramen, but just lighter.
There's no place in Oklahoma that serves good tonkatsu ramen, yet. Tokyo sushi now serves ramen due to the ramen craze started by the ramen food truck here in OKC, but they cut a lot of corners and just doesn't cut it. The Kaiteiki Ramen food truck, however, serves a very convincing shoyu ramen and ranks very high on my list for great ramen. Also, their asian pork belly burgers is the best in town.
For the eggs, the mixture is about a half cup of soy sauce and about 1-2 spoons of rice vinegar and 1 spoon of sugar. You can even leave out the vinegar and sugar if you want or experiment with different types of vinegar. Some people with do 1 spoon of rice vinegar and 1 spoon of sherry vinegar. Whatever floats your boat.
If you like your eggs hard boiled, then this is fast and easy. Place the eggs in a heated pot of soy mixture and keep a slow boil going. A few minutes will do it and be sure to make sure all sides get the dark color. The salt will penetrate really fast so I would try for 5 minutes first. If it's not salty and flavorful enough for you then try longer. I think I do about 10 minutes for large eggs.
If you like the eggs soft boiled and yolk soft, then you need to do it a different way. Get a timer and boil the eggs for exactly 7 minutes. Immediately place in ice bath of water. Put peeled eggs in cold soy mixture and place in fridge for about an hour. Longer if you want it saltier. Be sure to roll the eggs midway through so all sides are covered (or make enough mixture to submerge eggs completely.) Remove eggs and keep soy mixture in the fridge for later. The soy mixture will keep for weeks and can be used over and over again as long as there's no egg bits in it.
For hard boiled eggs done the "cold" way, it's about the same time. I have left it overnight and the eggs were just a little saltier. Some people will dilute the soy sauce mixture with water, especially when making large batches or want to infuse the eggs with other flavors and spices. Some will add peppers in the soy mixture or add slices of ginger, ect.
When eggs are cool and ready to serve, you can eat whole or you can cut in half and add some finely chopped green onions and fried shallots. You can even put a dab of the soy mixture right into the yolk if you like.
You can also cut in half and add to ramen noodles or other broth based soups and dishes.
Last edited: