[Recipe] the best beef bourguignon miso ramen

Beef Bourguignon Miso Ramen

Beef Bourguignon Miso Ramen

It is always a pleasant surprise when you are experimenting and you creating something beyond delicious. Last week it was a perfect storm both literally and figuratively. It must have been the second week in a row that it was pouring rain in California with drought ending weather. With some inspiration from i am a food blog's "Warm and Cozy Beef Bourguignon" recipe, I decided to make my own french beef stew. It was an easy and delicious recipe, and how can you go wrong with beef, wine, and bacon? Of course, you can make this killer combination better by turning it into Ramen!

The beef bourguignon is pretty simple to make and can be completed in about 3.5 hours. I suggest using the stew to make your ramen after it has sat in the fridge for at least a day or two; stews always taste better the next day.  This will allow all of the flavors to meld together. While I am usually an advocate of making all stock from scratch, the generic low sodium beef stock worked surprisingly well.


I luckily had homemade tsukemen noodle and miso tare in my fridge. The miso tare was taken from reddit's ramen_lord's miso ramen recipe (check out his instagram for ramen goodness). I went with an awase miso for my tare, which is a combination of white and red miso. It adds a very rustic quality to ramen and pairs very well with stew. The tsukemen noodles were a product of one of my noodle making madness the other month. This was the first successful time I made tsukemen noodles. I picked up a few secrets from my noodle research.

Miso Tare & Aroma Oil

Miso Tare & Aroma Oil


beef_bourguignon

Beef Bourguignon Ramen  with Tsukmen Noodles Recipe

Ingredients:

Okay, so this isn't really a recipe, but more of a union of many great recipes. Think of me as a wing man that is bringing two great recipes together. A match made in heaven has to start somewhere. There are a lot of recipes that are in progress (e.g. the dashi and aroma oil). I have provided other resources for reference in the meantime.

Combine a cup of beef bourguignon with 2/3 cup of dashi into a pot to create your broth and set it to medium heat. You want to thin out the stew to the point that it will barely stick to your noodles. Next, add the miso tare to your broth. I would add your tare one tablespoon at a time and adjust to taste. The amount will vary depending on how you seasoned your stew and tare.

In a separate pot, boil water for your tsukemen noodles (see recipe below - yes the only actual recipe in this post). Udon will work in a pinch. You want something thick and chewy. If you use udon, use the frozen kind - none of that gooey precooked stuff. Boil your noodles until they are cooked through. Frozen udon will take about 3-5 minutes. Fresh tsukemen noodles require 10-12 minutes of cook time.

Strain the broth into a bowl with the aroma oil and reserve the solids (beef, carrots, mushrooms, etc) to top your bowl. If you don't care for presentation, you can pass on straining the broth. Add your noodles to your bowl and dunk and swirl your noodles around the broth. This will coat the noodles with the flavorful aroma oil.

Now you can top your bowl with the stew ingredients that you strained, ajitsuke tamago, green onions, and whatever else you have lying around. The seaweed goes last if you value crispy seaweed

 


tsukemen noodle recipe

5 servings

Tsukemen noodles are easier to make than most types of ramen noodles due to its high hydration (45% hydration). Start by mixing your bread flour and egg powder. Your solids should equal 100 grams per serving that you are planning to make. Because I wanted to make 5 servings, I weighted out a total of 500 grams of bread flour and egg powder.

In a separate bowl combine your salt, baked soda (sodium carbonate), and water together to make kansui or alkaline water. For those of you who are unfamiliar with baked soda, it is baking soda baked for one hour at 250 degrees F. The heat causes a reaction where the baking soda gives off one water and carbon dioxide and transforms for sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. You will want to add your ingredients little by little to water, otherwise it will clump together. Adding your ingredients to warm water will help dissolve it quicker.

In a mixer (hand mixing will work too), add your kansui slowly to your dry ingredients. Don't add it too fast, or else you will end up with uneven hydration. Because of the high water content, your dough will actually be pretty smooth. After the dough takes shape, cover the bowl and let it sit for 30 mins. You want to let the gluten rest and develop. Following this, divide your dough into 5 portions and run it through your pasta machine at its widest setting. I let these sheets sit covered for another 30 minutes to relax the gluten, but because we are not making thin noodles, you could maybe skip this step. Run the dough sheets through the 2nd widest setting on your pasta roller and dust with potato starch. Fold your dough in half length wise and fold it in half again. Next, cut your dough into 1/4 inch noodles and you're good to go! 

Ingredients:

  • 490 g of bread flour
  • 10 g of egg powder
  • 5 g of salt
  • 5 g of baked soda
  • 225 g water
  • Potato Starch for dusting