Ramen with Starchy Sauce (Sanma-men)
Sanma-men is a type of ramen with lots of different kinds of vegetables in starchy sauce. This ramen originally came from Yokohama Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. It is one of the famous soul foods in Yokohama, Kanagawa. Ramen soup is soy sauce based and starchy sauce makes you keep warm. It has a lot of vegetables, which makes your stomach fulfilled in nutrition-wise.
It is said that Sanma-men was eaten by staff who worked at a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama, it wasn’t originally on the menu in the beginning. It became popular gradually and now it is well-known among people from Yokohama, Kanagawa.
I am not originally from Yokohama and I didn’t know about this ramen. But once I tried it a while after I moved to Yokohama, I fell in love. I tried to duplicate the Sanma-men that I had and I could get so close. I use lots of vegetables and its soup is simple. You can add or use alternative ingredients if you want. In this recipe, you need 5 vegetables and minced meat or pork slices as ingredients and four condiments in a starchy sauce. You'll need many different kinds of ingredients, it might overwhelm you a bit but it's not harder to cook than it actually sounds.
- 100 g Bean sprouts
- 80 g Cabbages
- 1/4 Carrot
- 1/2 Chinese chive
- 5 g Wood ear mushroom (Dried wood ear mushroom)
- 50 g Pork minced meat (Alternative; pork slices)
- 1 tbsp Soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Cooking sake
- 1 tbsp Oyster sauce
- 1 tsp Chicken stock
- 150 ml Water (It is for the starchy sauce)
- 1 tbsp Potato starch
- 50 ml Water (It is for dissolved potato starch)
- 150 g Ramen noodles
- 1 tsp Chicken stock (It is for the soup)
- 200 ml Water (It is for the soup)
- As needed Sesame oil
- Preparation
Get all the ingredients and condiments.
-The Chinese chives in the photo are prepared for 1(not half). - Soak dried wood ear mushrooms in water and boil the water for noodles
Put dried wood ear mushrooms in a bowl filled with warm water to soak them in for about 15 minutes. Pour 2 L water (it is not included in the ingredients list) into a pot and boil to be ready for noodles.
-Follow the instructions on the package of dried wood ear mushrooms about how long you need to put them in the water and noodles about the way to boil them. - Cut ingredients
While waiting water boiled, cut ingredients. Cut cabbage into bite-size, cut carrots into thin rectangles, and cut Chinese chive into approx. 3 cm (1 inch). After soaking up wood ear mushrooms, cut them into small pieces. And wash bean sprouts to get ready.
- Mix potato starch and water
Combine potato starch and water to make dissolved potato starchy sauce.
- Saute the vegetables
Heat a pan over medium-high heat, put sesame oil on the pan. First, saute cabbages and carrots, next add minced meat. When the meat turns color, add bean sprouts and wood ear mushrooms, later on, add Chinese chives. Finally, add soy sauce, cooking sake, oyster sauce, and chicken stock to season the vegetables. Once it seasons well pour the water into the pan.
- Make vegetables starchy sauce
When it boils up, turn off the heat add the potato starch mixture, and combine all together well. Heat the pan again over low heat, and simmer it until it becomes starchy. when it boils once again, turn off the heat.
- Boil noodles
While making starchy sauce, water would boil up, put the noodles into a pot, and boil for appropriate time. After boiling the noodles, drain them well with a strainer.
-Follow the instructions on the package of noodles about the way to boil them. - Make soup
While boiling noodles heat up 200 ml water, and once it boils, put chicken stock.
- Dish up
Put drained noodles into a bowl and put vegetable starchy sauce on it, and at last pour the soup into the bowl.
