Tonkotsu Ramen Broth

I bought a 32-Quart stainless steel stock pot recently, thinking that one day I may deep fry a turkey in this pot. To get good use out of it, I decided to make broth for Tonkotsu ramen. This pot itself weighs 13 pounds, if I fill it with water and ingredients, it’s impossible for me to lift it.  If you have a 24-quart stock pot, it will suffice.

All Tonkotsu broth recipes require 12-18 hour cooking time (the longer the time, the more gelatin develops in the soup), but it doesn’t mean you are stuck in the house for the whole day. I cooked my broth for 6 hours the first day, let cool it and put it in the fridge, then continued to cook it the second day until the broth became thick and milky. One thing I have to mention is the pig fat “fatback”. Fatback will add nice and rich flavors to your broth, but for health concerns, I omitted it.

Ingredients:

7 pounds	Pig trotters (cut crosswise)
5 pounds (about 6 pieces)	Chicken carcasses
2 pounds	Pork bones
1	Onion
12	Garlic cloves
1 thumb size	Ginger (sliced)
12	Green onions (white part only)
1 pound	Fatback (optional)

Toppings and Garnish for ramen:

Soft boiled eggs
Chashu
Fish cake
Nori (seaweed)
Green onions
Enoki mushrooms

Directions:

1. Bring a big pot of water to a boil, then put trotters, pork bones and chicken carcasses in (should have enough water to cover all bones), cook for 5-10 minutes. (picture 1)
2. Drain the bones and use a knife or chopstick to take out the dark marrow and rinse with cold water. (pictures 2 and 3)
3. Wash any coagulated blood off from the chicken carcasses with cold water. (picture 4)
4. Chop onion and peel garlic, then brown them in a pan, the browner the better.  (pictures 5 and 6)
5. Add all ingredients into a stock pot and fill the pot with water.   Bring it to a boil, then simmer over low heat.  (picture 7)
6. You may want to skim off the scum that appears on the top with a stainless steel skimmer. (picture 8)
7. The pot I used is 32-quart, it is big enough to double this recipe.  After cooking the broth for 16 hours over low heat, the broth is opaque with the texture of light cream.  (pictures 9 and 10)
8. Pour broth through a fine mesh strainer into a clean pot, discard solids.  (picture 11)
9. Season broth with salt, taste it and adjust as needed.  (picture 12)
10. (Optional):  If you want your broth to have a rich flavor, add pork fatback directly to your pot as the bones cook.  After an hour, take the fatback out and finely chop it, then whisk some into the soup just before serving.

• I found this type of fresh ramen at an Asian supermarket, cook noodles according to package directions.