Food - Drink
The 4 Main Japanese Ramen Styles Fans Need
To Know
By HOPE NGO
Many restaurants in Japan, particularly those found in neighborhoods and smaller cities, are one-trick ponies that specialize in just one style of dish. Such is the case with ramen, often served at a "ramen-ya," where noodles can be cooked to different textures, with all kinds of toppings, and in various broths.
One category of ramen broth is clear and light — known as “chintan” — where stock made with chicken, vegetable, or seafood soup can be mixed with a traditional Japanese soup base known as dashi. The second category is a cloudier, richer broth known as "paitan," which MasterClass describes as "full of fat, and silky in texture due to gelatin, which forms when the collagen-rich connective tissue is cooked at a high temperature."
Out of these categories come four types of ramen styles. Shoyu, Japanese for soy sauce, delivers a chintan-style clear soup usually made with chicken, while the cloudy, nearly milk-white broth tonkotsu is made by simmering pork bones for hours. Shio is a light broth made with seafood and liberally seasoned with sea salt, while miso can be made with pork, chicken, or fish stock and is flavored with miso, or fermented soybean paste.