Shio tare and the broth
In ramen, the salt gets into the bowl through the tare. You cook the broth unsalted and season it only when you assemble the bowl. You will find the basics on the types of tare and their role in the bowl under ramen tare. Shio tare suits light broths whose own flavor you want to taste. With a chicken tori chintan or a dashi-based broth, the flavor of chicken and sea comes through. Shoyu tare would turn both broths dark.
The ingredients
- Salt: Fine sea salt dissolves faster. Coarse salt works too, you just stir longer. The 120 g on the card make a concentrated solution that you use only by the spoonful.
- Kombu: Wipe the piece with a damp cloth and do not wash it. The white coating carries part of the flavor. Varieties and buying are described in the article on kombu.
- Bonito flakes: 10 g of katsuobushi give smoke and fish flavor. For a vegan tare, leave them out and soak 3 dried shiitake with the kombu.
- Sake and mirin: Sake rounds off the salt, and mirin adds sweetness. Cooking sake from an Asian grocery store often contains salt. A plain drinking sake tastes cleaner.
How to make the tare
Soaking
Kombu, garlic, ginger and scallion steep in sake and mirin for 30 to 60 minutes. During this time the cold liquid draws glutamate out of the seaweed. The tare then needs less cooking time and stays clear.
Remove the kombu before boiling
Heat the liquid with water and sugar slowly. Just before it boils, take out the kombu. If it cooks along, it turns slimy and the tare tastes bitter. Then stir in the salt and let everything simmer gently for 10 minutes.
Bonito and citrus
Take the pot off the heat before the flakes go in. In bubbling liquid they release bitter compounds. After 10 to 15 minutes, pour everything through a cloth and squeeze the flakes out only lightly, because hard pressing makes the tare cloudy. Put the yuzu peel into the warm, strained tare and take it out after 5 minutes. Lemon peel without the white pith replaces yuzu.
Dosing and using it
Start with 1 tbsp tare per 240 ml broth. For a ramen bowl with 350 ml broth, that is a good 1.5 tbsp. Put the tare in the warmed bowl, pour the hot broth over it and taste before the noodles go in. A spoonful of chicken fat or aroma oil on top carries the aroma. A complete bowl is shown in the recipe for shio ramen with mushrooms and soy egg.
Outside of ramen, shio tare seasons udon broths, rice soup or a dressing for cucumber. For darker soups and for yakitori skewers, cook shoyu tare.
Common mistakes
- Soup too salty: Tare is a concentrate. Add it in half tablespoons until the broth tastes balanced.
- Cloudy tare: Hard boiling or squeezed-out bonito flakes make it cloudy. Strain through a cloth and let the liquid only simmer gently.
- Mold in the jar: Take the tare out with a clean spoon. In a clean, closed jar it keeps for several weeks in the fridge.
