Ivan Ramen

SLOW-ROASTED TOMATOES
Makes 8 tomato halves
4 medium or large tomatoes (or more)
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
1 Preheat the oven to 225°F (110°C). Slice the tomatoes in half and core them. Place them cut side up on a sheet tray, brush them lightly with oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2 Put the tomatoes in the oven and cook until shriveled but still juicy looking. This should take about 3 hours, but it’ll depend on the tomatoes, so be patient and check regularly after the first 2½ hours. You’re looking for the tomatoes to be soft and a little leathery, but still moist.

A cup of uncooked white rice will yield about 2 cups of cooked rice.
Makes as much as you want
1 part Japanese short-grain white rice
1 part water
1 Rinse the rice several times under cool water until the water runs clear. Drain the rice well.
2 Combine the rice and the water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover, turn the heat down to low, and cook for 18 minutes—no need to add fat or salt.
3 Uncover and fluff with a fork. Leftover rice can be wrapped in plastic and frozen in small portions.

Chicken Teriyaki
ANOTHER USE FOR CHICKEN FAT
Although in America anything “teriyaki” sounds a little mundane or contrived, this really is a staple in Japanese homes. I make it often for the kids, because a) I always have tons of chicken fat on hand, and b) it’s delicious, so why not?
Makes 4 servings
1 kilo (2 pounds) skinless, boneless chicken thighs
15 grams (1 tablespoon) all-purpose flour
Salt
30 milliliters (2 tablespoons) CHICKEN FAT
120 milliliters (½ cup) sake
120 milliliters (½ cup) mirin
20 milliliters (4 teaspoons) soy sauce
15 grams (1 tablespoon) sugar
Warm STEAMED RICE, for serving
Shredded green cabbage, for serving

Makes about 235 milliliters (1 cup)
235 milliliters (1 cup) CHICKEN FAT
2 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
1 Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer over the lowest heat possible for an hour.
2 Cool to room temperature, strain, and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

I like clean, sharp, refined flavors. My ramen is sophisticated and complex in the way it’s built—smoked fish and pork and chicken make multiple appearances in different forms—but I don’t think it has to taste that way. For me, a perfect bowl of ramen is balanced—not too salty, not too fatty. The soup sparkles with the taste of its ingredients. If it’s a fish soup, you can taste the fish. If it’s chicken, you taste chicken.

One day I said to Shimazaki-san—one of my close friends and proprietor of one of the most serious and respected ramen shops in all of Tokyo—“Man, none of these ramen chefs want to share anything with me.” He looked at me and laughed, “That’s because they don’t know anything. They learn how to make ramen from their master, and they can’t veer from that recipe.”
There’s probably some truth to what he said, but whatever the reason, when it came to making my own bowl of ramen, I was on my own. To be frank, I didn’t really sweat it. I considered the flavors I like, the style of food I like, and I made a bowl of ramen to match.

Coming to a foreign country to set up an outpost of your own culture just struck me as disrespectful. I wasn’t the sort of intense weirdo who would say, “Gomen, nihongo shika hanasenai” (“No, sorry, I only speak Japanese”) if a group of English speakers asked me to go grab a beer, but I was constantly amazed that people would come all the way to this coun- try and ignore all the amazing things around us. I met people who had been in Tokyo for seventeen years who didn’t speak any Japanese. I’d look at them and think, “Are you okay? What’s your problem? You came to live in Tokyo, but don’t understand the language, don’t like Japanese food, and don’t feel like trying to fix either situation. You’ve created a bizarre little English-speaking world in downtown Tokyo.” One guy I met had a wife who didn’t speak any English, and even their two kids didn’t speak English very well either—he couldn’t talk to his own kids! He wasn’t a bad guy, but what a tragic life.

I got talked into purchasing a motorcycle soon after arriving in Japan. I never really loved riding it, and when it was stolen three weeks after the purchase—the only act of theft I’ve ever experienced in Japan—I stopped riding motorcycles forever.

There will be babies born and nourished on your food. One day they’ll be nine years old, and it’ll be really weird: they will have formed memories in your restaurant, on your ramen. They will learn to eat the way you want them to. You will learn from them.
You’re feeding people, you’re going to bring people a lot of joy. It’s a heavy-duty thing when you get past all the bullshit. But do not underestimate the bullshit.