From: Chef Jason Dorweiler, UniDeli, Minneapolis.
Yield: 50 servings.
Fuji Apple Ramen Stock:
Pork Bones:
hocks (split)
femur (split)
trotters (quartered)
1 head (if available)
Chicken Bones:
feet
backs
wing tips
3 lb. vegetable scraps (onion ends, carrot ends, celery ends, mushroom stems, etc.)
or 3 lb. roughly chopped vegetables if scraps are unavailable
30 whole peppercorns
10 Fuji apples, sliced in sections
15 heads of garlic, halved across
10 knobs of ginger, roughly chopped
2 qt. cooking sake
Tare:
2 qt. high-quality soy sauce
1 qt. sugar
1 qt. dashi (recipe follows)
3 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup fish sauce
2 sheets kombu
Dashi Seasoning:
1 cup salt
2 cups packed Katsuobushi flakes, broken down by hand
10-15 dried powdered shitake mushroom caps, ground in a spice grinder)
as needed, fresh ramen noodles
For stock: Fill a 15-gallon stockpot equally with hocks, femur, and trotters 1/3 of the way full, along with the head (if available). In a 5-gallon stockpot, do the same with chicken bones. Please note, when filling your stock pots with bones, aim for nearly half full, as the heat will break down the bones and will cause them to settle more.
Fill both stock pots with water and turn burner heat to high until a rolling boil occurs, then switch to a low heat with a gentle boil, making sure to add water as the mixture evaporates. Continue for 12 hours or until both stocks become opaque, or a solid off white color, almost milky in appearance. (The chicken stock will appear more white then the pork.) When both stocks have reached optimal color continue to let the chicken stock reduce until only half the original volume is left.
While the chicken reduces, turn the heat on the pork to its lowest gentle simmer and add the vegetable scraps, chopped vegetables, chopped peppercorns, Fuji apples, garlic, ginger and sake. Simmer for 1 hour.
To add ingredients to apple shoyu tare: As soon as the chicken-based stock reduces by about half, turn the heat off and strain the stock through a fine wire mesh into another pot, then transfer the bones and bits into the simmering pork stock.
Return the chicken stock to the heat and add the soy sauce, sugar, dashi, apple cider vinegar, fish sauce and kombu. Simmer for another 20 minutes, then remove kombu. Tare is now ready.
For dashi seasoning: Combine ingredients.
To assemble and serve: Add 1 part ramen stock to ¼ part tare for each bowl. Adjust as necessary with either more or less tare or salt to preference.
Use fresh ramen noodles prepared to instructions (this will also work with udon or soba noodles).
Toppings for this ramen include: mirin braised beech and oyster mushrooms, narutomaki (fish cake), wakame (seaweed), julienned leeks, menma (pickled bamboo shoots), bok choy, black garlic oil, and sesame seeds.