Iekei Ramen Hot Pot Made with Chicken Paitan Soup: From Making the Broth to Finishing with Chinese Noodles

The Marudori Gara Soup that Ryuji usually uses makes a clean, light broth. Chicken paitan soup, by contrast, reportedly makes a rich broth just by dissolving it, the kind you can't make at home. Iekei ramen broth is strongly associated with pork, but in reality it contains quite a lot of chicken. So using chicken paitan soup as a base gets you an iekei ramen-style broth right away, Ryuji explains.

The recipe was inspired by store-bought "ramen hot pot base." To recreate that kind of rich hot pot soup at home, you'd have to add gelatin and various other things. This recipe replaces all of that with chicken paitan soup. Ryuji admits it's awkward to say since Ryuji also sells a hot pot soup product, but points out that large hot pot soup packs are heavy and bulky. When a staff member responds that "store-bought ones are often for 3–4 servings," Ryuji answers that this method lets you adjust the quantity, and you can even make a half batch.

The meat is 350g of thinly sliced pork offcuts (komagire). Even komagire stays tender enough as long as you don't overcook it. If you want it more tender, pork belly works, and if you're concerned about fat, other cuts are fine too. Still, Ryuji says thin komagire with a little fat on it tastes better if possible. Chicken also goes well, so you can add some. In that case, thinly sliced chicken thigh is best.

The vegetables are cabbage, carrot, spinach, and Japanese leek. Since it's iekei ramen-style, spinach is a "must." Napa cabbage can substitute for cabbage, but Ryuji's preference is cabbage, which goes quite well with this broth. Mushrooms are tasty too, but adding them moves the dish away from iekei ramen broth and closer to an ordinary hot pot, so this time the ingredients were kept simple. In addition, prepare garlic and boiled eggs to give it a ramen feel.

Ryuji believes cooking should be enjoyed, and drinks alcohol in between steps while cooking.

Boiling the spinach in advance makes it more ramen-like. Wash it well and put it into lightly salted water, stem end first since the stems take longer to cook, for several tens of seconds. Pull it out after about a minute and a half in total. Boiling removes oxalic acid. If the oxalic acid remains, it gives a squeaky texture that isn't very pleasant, so blanching it once is important. If that's too much trouble, you can just cut it and soak it in water; about 15 minutes of soaking removes a good deal of it. Frozen spinach is fine, and Ryuji also says it's tasty even raw. Ryuji frankly adds that the dish is delicious even without the boiled eggs or spinach.

The water used to boil the spinach goes straight on to the boiled eggs. Beginners tend to boil fresh water each time, but this way everything is done in one pot, which is efficient. Adding about 2 teaspoons of vinegar makes the shells easier to peel. Use 2–3 eggs, depending on how many you'll eat. For soft-boiled, the guideline is 7 to 7½ minutes after putting them into boiling water. The 7-minute eggs this time were a little on the soft side, but that's fine. If it's a hassle, canned quail eggs work too. Some iekei ramen shops include quail eggs, so they go in this time as well.

The carrot is for color, so use about half, roughly 100g. Don't peel it, since the skin softens as it simmers. Slicing it thinly adds a red hue to the pot and boosts the appetite.

Cut the leek diagonally. Leek goes very well with ramen, and adding it as an ingredient brings out aroma. Use about half a head of cabbage. The core gets tough in a hot pot, so remove it and roughly chop 400–450g. There's a lot of cabbage because the point of eating hot pot is the vegetables. Ryuji says that, normally, Ryuji eats a frightening amount of nothing but meat, and rarely eats vegetables outside of hot pot.

In between steps, Ryuji says that, sponsorship aside, Ryuji has genuinely gotten hooked on chicken paitan soup. Chicken bone stock doesn't give body, but the white soup that Chinese restaurants add to stir-fries is sometimes chicken paitan soup. Because it contains stock made by simmering chicken, it thickens slightly as it reduces and clings to the ingredients. That's why it makes stir-fried vegetables really tasty too, Ryuji explains.

For the broth, you just add the ingredients to a clay pot. Ryuji calls it a "magic ramen broth" that makes anything you put in it delicious.

• Water: 600cc
• Soy sauce: 3 tablespoons (iekei ramen is soy sauce-based and contains quite a lot of soy sauce)
• Chicken paitan soup: 2½ tablespoons
• "AJI-NO-MOTO": ½ teaspoon
• Rice bran oil: 2 tablespoons

You can replace some of the soy sauce, about half a tablespoon, with fish sauce. Ryuji's reason is that the founder of Yoshimuraya, the head temple of iekei ramen, has said they use fish sauce.

A generous amount of chicken paitan soup is used this time. It has a gelatinous quality like simmered chicken and emulsifies right away. The staff, looking at the broth just after dissolving it, agree that it looks like iekei ramen broth. Ramen needs umami, so adding "AJI-NO-MOTO" brings it much closer to ramen. It's tasty without it, but adding it makes it more ramen-like.

When a staff member asks, "Isn't there no pork element?", Ryuji answers that the pork going in will release stock. If you like it rich, lard is fine for the oil, but this time ease of preparation took priority, so light rice bran oil was used. The pork also releases fat in the pot, so adding too much would make it heavy. Stirring with chopsticks dissolves all the chicken paitan soup. Ryuji again declares that, even though it's odd coming from someone who sells hot pot soup, you really don't need hot pot soup.

Add the vegetables and pork komagire to the broth. Komagire is light and tasty, and perhaps because the broth has body, the meat also turns out tender. The leek gives the broth strength. The carrot makes it look overwhelmingly better. The spinach is already boiled, so it goes in later. At 350g, the meat is on the small side, but you can increase it to 500g or add chicken. Cover and simmer over medium heat. Ryuji estimates it'll take about 10 minutes for the cabbage to cook through.

After about 5 minutes of simmering, the broth had already thickened. Now it's time to finish. Adding the garlic later brings out a fresh aroma. Chopping it "makes it Jiro-like," so grated garlic is used. Ryuji loves garlic and added a generous 15g, but the amount is up to you.

Then add about 2 tablespoons of (unsweetened) soy milk. Milk also works. It's for color; the dish is tasty without it, but even better with it. Ryuji explains that it adds a bit of richness, gives the broth body, and helps the emulsion along. Once it was added, the broth became a slightly cloudy, iekei ramen-style broth.

For serving, push the carrots aside a little and place the spinach on top. Then arrange the soft-boiled eggs and quail eggs. The eggs are unseasoned, so sprinkling them with Aji-Shio to season them makes them super tasty. Noting that there aren't many hot pots with eggs as an ingredient, Ryuji confidently said, "I don't think there'll be a better hot pot than this one this year."

While waiting for it to simmer, Ryuji touched on how hard it is to make chicken paitan soup from scratch at home. To make it cloudy, you have to extract a large amount of collagen from chicken bones and the like. Ramen shops and iekei ramen shops use chicken feet called "momiji." Momiji are jiggly and gelatinous, so boiling them hard over high heat produces a cloudy broth.

Ajinomoto has done all of that for you, so riding on that is what home cooking is about, Ryuji says. No matter how hard you work at home cooking, nobody pays you for it, so the more you use convenient seasonings and cut out steps, the better. Ryuji's philosophy is that you should spend the time saved on family, studying, games, and so on.

Staff who tasted it said things like "the flavor is deep" and "it's totally ramen." One said that rather than buying hot pot soup, you'd definitely be better off making this. Ryuji responded that being able to adjust the strength is another advantage. The eggs also became super tasty in the ramen broth, and the pork komagire stayed tender rather than getting tough. Pork lets you eat it lightly, it's healthier than pork belly since it has less fat, and thigh meat is fine too.

Ryuji notes that because rice bran oil was used instead of lard this time, it's deep in flavor yet light. Ryuji also said there's no flavor like this in other recipes, and that it's probably a taste most people haven't had much. Ajinomoto employees also tasted it and commented, "It's super delicious" and "It's pretty light."

When staff asked about quantity, Ryuji gave an estimate. One bag of chicken paitan soup makes about two batches, and each batch serves 3–4, so that's about 8 servings in total.

Like the "stronger" or "less" options at iekei ramen shops, you can adjust it to your liking. For a stronger flavor, add more chicken paitan soup and soy sauce. Only 2 tablespoons of oil went in for this amount, so increasing it brings it much closer to iekei ramen. If you want it spicy, doubanjiang is good, because iekei ramen shops keep it on hand too.

Guidelines were also given for making it strong from the start. Using about 3½ tablespoons of soy sauce and about ⅔ teaspoon of umami seasoning gives a punchy iekei broth.

The finishing course is Chinese noodles. Thick noodles for tsukemen suit iekei, so thick noodles are used. With several people, two portions were boiled. Simmering them in the hot pot broth makes them limp, so Ryuji cautions to pull them out early, after about 3 to 3½ minutes. Even if they're a little firm, it's fine because they'll simmer in the pot.

According to Ryuji, this broth is seasoned for hot pot, so when adding ramen it tastes better stronger. Add about 5 shakes of "AJI-NO-MOTO" and about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce to the remaining broth. This corresponds to ramen "kaeshi," that is, the soy sauce tare. Then add a little more oil and put in the noodles. Adding the noodles thickens the broth and gives it even more body.

The staff were amazed: "It's already iekei ramen." Someone said it was "several levels tastier than a regular hot pot," but Ryuji took that to mean they like strong flavors, and added that if you add soy sauce and umami seasoning from the start, you'll get this flavor. For a single serving, a half batch is fine.

Finally, Ryuji said the dish only reaches its complete form once you've eaten the finishing course. Ryuji then wrapped up the video by urging viewers to try this ramen hot pot with chicken paitan soup at home this year.