Adapted from a BBC Good Food recipe when I realised that most recipes in a certain ramen cookbook required 8 other things you had to make and about a month of spare time. Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 1 chicken stock cube
- a handful of frozen stir-fry veg, quickly fried
- 1 far garlic clove, thinly chopped
- 1 red chilli, thinly sliced
- a few good slugs of soy sauce
- a few shakes of Worcester sauce
- thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root, thinly sliced – it’s always a ‘thumb-sized’ piece of ginger. Perhaps because ginger looks like thumbs.
- 1 teaspoon Chinese five spice
- pinch of chilli powder
- some sugar or sweetener, e.g. honey or agave nectar
- 2 packets of thick easy-cook ramen / udon noodles – the moist ones.
- 8 strips of pork belly
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- vegetable oil
- sesame seeds
- spring onion, chopped
- some baby spinach leaves
- a sheet of nori / dried seaweed
Method
Rub the pork belly strips with Chinese 5 spice and set aside.
Quickly fry a few handfuls of frozen stir-fry veg in some vegetable oil and set aside.
Add some sesame oil to the pan and turn up the heat. Sear the pork belly strips until they are brown on each side and set aside. Pour off any excess fat.
In the same pan, with all the caramelised porky bits, combine the chicken stock cube, sauces, sweetener, 750ml hot water, garlic, ginger, fresh chilli, a pinch of chilli powder and a pinch more 5 spice. Bring to the boil and simmer for a while. Add more water if required. Add the noodles and veg.
Slice the pork belly in the opposite direction to the strips so each porky chunk has a strip of meat and fat and add to the pot. Simmer gently until pork and noodles are cooked, add the spinach and put the lid on until it has wilted.
Serve and garnish with sesame seeds, spring onion and shredded nori.