Hello Ramen Demo & Workshop by Chef Andy Matsuda!

I’ve always been a fan of ramen and have always wondered what it would be like to make ramen at home. When I heard I would be a getting a chance to be a guest blogger and attend a Ramen Demo and Workshop at the Sushi Chef Institute, I was so excited.

I’ve been looking forward to this class and today was finally class day!

The Ramen Demod and Workship was taught by Chef Andy Matsuda. Chef Andy is the CEO and chief instructor at the Sushi Chef Institute as well as the director of the Los Angeles Branch of the World Sushi Cup. He’s been sushi chef in various restaurants around the US from Santa Monica to Aspen to New York. It thus was such a honor to attend one of his classes and meet him.

Chef Andy started with giving us a little history of ramen. I learned that different regions specialize in different types of ramen. The miso type of Ramen is from Northern Japan while in Kyushu, Japan the popular ramen is Tonkotsu. The new version of ramen is in Tokyo, where they have Tsuke-men.

After learning about the different types of ramen, it was time to learn how to make ramen!

The first step is making the base stock. The base stock is made out of pork bone and chicken bone. The bones are boiled in a gallon of water for 20 minutes to wash out the blood and clean the bones. After cleaning, the bones are cooked in ice water with ginger, garlic, carrots, green onion/beets and apple. This is cooked for 2 hours.

The second step is the chashu making. Chef Andy used 2lbs of pork belly that was grilled by fry pan for 5 to 10 minutes. A sauce for marinating the chashu was also made out of dark soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar and garlic. This sauce was simmered for two hours at medium heat. After the pork belly was pan fried, it was put in the marinated sauces for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Up next was making the various toppings. Black mushrooms were put into sake and water drained. This was flavored with salt and sesame oil. Bok choy was cut in half and boiled in water. The eggs were kept outside for 30 minutes. This is so that the egg yolk is not too cold. After the 30 mnutes, the eggs were then put in boiling water with table salt for 7 minutes and then put in ice water before cracking.

Chef Andy showed us four different types of ramen during this class.

Each type of ramen uses one tablespoon of condiments of sesame oil, grained garlic and pork fat along with two cups of base stock.

The first type of ramen showcased was the sho-yu ramen. This salt ramen included the above condiments and base stock with 2 tablespoons of salt.

The second type of ramen shown was the Tonkatsu ramen. A condensed Tonkatsu was used.

A spicy version of the Tonkatusu was also shown. For the spicy version, spicy chili oil made out of chili peppers and sesame oil was used.

Lastly Tsukemen ramen was shown. Tsukemen has 1/2 Tonkatsu and 1/2 soup with extra chunks of chashu. For this ramen, only one cup of the bass stock was used. The soup is for dipping on the side.

This ramen demo and workshop was so informative and I was really happy with every thing I learned. From this class I came to really appreciate the art of making ramen. I can’ wait to try making ramen at home in my hello kitty kitchen (perhaps a future hello kitty foodie blog post)😉.