Japanese Asahikawa Ramen and Double-Soup Shoyu System

Ingredients

• For the seafood dashi
• 20 g konbu, wiped clean with a damp cloth
• 30 g niboshi (dried sardines), heads and viscera removed if bitter taste is to be avoided
• 1.5 litres cold water
• For the pork-and-chicken bone broth
• 500 g pork bones, blanched and rinsed
• 500 g chicken bones, blanched and rinsed
• 2 litres cold water
• For the shoyu tare
• 100 ml shoyu (Japanese soy sauce), robust grade
• 20 ml mirin
• For finishing each bowl
• 1 tsp lard or chicken oil (torikomi abura), per bowl; melted and held warm
• For the noodles
• 400 g medium straight ramen noodles, low-hydration, 28–32% water content
• Toppings
• 4 slices chashu (braised pork belly), thinly sliced
• 60 g menma (bamboo shoots), rinsed
• 4 soft-boiled eggs, halved lengthwise
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced

Method

1. 1
   Prepare the seafood dashi. Combine konbu and cold water in a pot. Bring slowly to just below a simmer — approximately 60–65 °C — and hold for 30 minutes without boiling. Remove konbu. Add niboshi, raise heat to a bare simmer, and extract for a further 10 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve into a clean vessel and reserve separately. The dashi is done when it is pale gold and carries a clean, sweet-marine aroma with no bitterness.
2. 2
   Prepare the pork-and-chicken bone broth. Place blanched bones in a separate pot with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a steady simmer, and cook for a minimum of 3 hours, skimming impurities as they rise. Do not combine this pot with the seafood dashi at any stage of cooking. The broth is ready when it is opaque, ivory in colour, and carries a full, rounded animal richness without any sharp or acrid off-notes.
3. 3
   Prepare the shoyu tare. Combine shoyu and mirin in a small saucepan. Warm gently over low heat, stirring, until just unified — do not boil. Remove from heat and hold at room temperature. The tare is added per bowl at service, not to the master broth. This is where the dish lives or dies: under-seasoning the tare or adding it to the collective broth in bulk destroys the precise per-bowl seasoning control that defines the Asahikawa style and flattens the layered umami produced by the double-soup system.
4. 4
   At service, bring both broth components to a vigorous heat separately. Combine the seafood dashi and the pork-and-chicken bone broth in the bowl in the ratio that delivers balanced layered umami — a starting proportion of roughly equal parts is standard. The bowl is ready when the combined broth reads clean marine depth followed by full animal body, without either element overwhelming the other.
5. 5
   Cook the low-hydration straight noodles in a large volume of rapidly boiling unsalted water. Due to their low water content (28–32%), they require only brief cooking — typically 60–90 seconds. Remove when they are al dente: firm with a slight resistance at the core. Do not overcook; these noodles absorb liquid quickly once in the hot broth.
6. 6
   Assemble each bowl. Add 25–30 ml of shoyu tare to the warmed bowl first. Ladle in the united hot double-soup broth. Add drained noodles. Float 1 teaspoon of lard or chicken oil (torikomi abura) across the surface — this fat layer is a functional heat-retention device and must not be skimmed. Arrange chashu, menma, egg, and spring onion. The bowl is complete when the surface carries a visible sheen of fat and the broth temperature, protected beneath it, remains scalding throughout.