This flavourful duck miso ramen will give you great satisfaction! The duck and duck fat are delicate and provide for the fatty part of the broth, while dark miso is a flavour bomb that will make that broth complex and delicious.
Duck miso ramen can also be a great choice for people who love (or would love to taste) ramen but they do not eat pork.
This is a quick ramen. Although it takes about a fairly active hour to make it from start to finish, that will be all of it. You will have a show-stopping ramen without cooking a broth for 3 days or a pork belly for 5h. The concoction of miso, garlic, ginger, sake will make your taste buds incredibly happy. Serve it extremely hot and watch your diners get sweaty. This is how ramen is enjoyed!
Like any other ramen, it is best served hot, so it will take some live cooking of the ramen while your guests are already there. However, you can prepare most components in advance! You can sear the duck in advance, and just do the oven step at the very end. You can cook the vegetables in advance. You can prepare the miso mixture in advance, and why not the whole broth? Just bring it to a rolling boil at the very end.
Feel free to swap vegetables with whatever is in season and make sense to you. Or why not adding a soft-boiled egg? Find inspiration in your fridge and make duck miso ramen yours!
MAKE IT GLUTEN-FREE: swap ramen noodles for either one of the following: gluten-free ramen noodles, gluten-free soba noodles (buckwheat noodles), gluten-free rice noodles.
A little flexing on knife skills.
Duck Miso Ramen
Ingredients
- 1 duck breast, generally around 200-250g each
- 200 to 250g ramen (to make it gluten-free: buy gluten-free ramen, or replace with gluten-free soba noodles or gluten-free rice noodles)
- 4 tbsp duck fat (including the one rendered from the breast)
- 3 medium asparagus
- 2 spring onions
- 3 stalks of black kale
- 2 crushed garlic cloves
- 2 to 3 tbps red/dark miso (or a mix of white and red)
- 1 tbps honey
- 1 black garlic clove
- 1 tbps ginger (finely diced)
- 30ml cooking sake
- 4 to 6 dried shiitake or porcini mushrooms
- 40g katsuobushi
- Chilli oil, to serve (optional)
- Furikake, to serve (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 1. Make 750ml quick dashi as follows. Add the dried mushrooms and the katsuobushi to a metal or Pyrex bowl/jar (of minimum 1L capacity). Pour 750ml of boiling water on them and let it steep until you need to use it. Also get a large pot of water to a boil (vegetables and ramen will be cooked here).
- Step 2 2. Let’s move on to the duck breast. Prepare the breast as follows. Put it on your cutting board skin-side up. With a sharp knife, do some shallow incisions on the skin with a criss-cross pattern (try to avoid exposing the skin). Flip the duck. Trim any excess skin flapping around outside the perimeter of the breast and reserve it.
- Step 3 3. Season generously the duck breast (on both sides) with salt. Let it absorb the salt for at least 10 minutes before cooking and leave the breast to bloom and slightly come to temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 200C (180C fan).
- Step 4 4. Start with a cold heavy pan (cast iron or carbon steel). Place the duck breast skin-side down on the pan and turn it on to medium-high heat. Also add the pieces of skin you trimmed. We will be cooking the duck breast mostly on the skin side.
- Step 5 5. After 1 to 2 minutes the skin will start rendering. If you feel the pan is too hot and the fat too thick, turn it down to medium. Wait 5 to 6 minutes more, the skin should become crispy and there should be a pool of fat in the pan. Take a peek of the skin every once and then. It takes good use of your senses to perfectly cook such a beautiful and delicate piece of meat.
- Step 6 6. Once you are satisfied with the skin and the pan is quite hot, flip the duck breast and quickly sear it on the meat side. This will take maximum 1 minute, raise the heat to high if you need to! We want to sear it, not cook it.
- Step 7 7. Once that is done, flip the duck back on the skin side and move the pan to the oven. Depending on the thickness of the duck breast, 5 to 8 minutes of oven should bring it to a good medium-rare, but I encourage you to check that the internal temperature is of 55C (to have it food safe for sure you need to bring it to 71C to 77C, but if you are happy to take a little risk to have your breast medium-rare, aim at 55C).
- Step 8 If your pan is not oven-proof, you can put it on a baking tray.
- Step 9 8. Pull the duck out of the oven. Reserve the rendered fat that is in the pan. Set the duck and on a plate to rest for at least 8 minutes.
- Step 10 9. While the duck rests, prep the vegetables. Cut the black kale across its length in pieces of 3 to 4 cm. Drop it in the boiling water and cook it until a knife/fork pushed through the stalk feels no resistance (7 minutes will probably be enough). Slice the asparagus but keep the tips whole. Once the kale is ready, fish it out of the water with a spider or strainer and set it aside. Now cook the asparagus in the same water, if they are thin 5 minutes will be enough. Fish them out with a strainer and set them aside. Slice the spring onions thinly. Set the onions aside in a bowl and cover with cold water until needed (this will remove some of the onion’s bite).
- Step 11 10. Heat a wok or large pan with tall sides on medium-high heat. Make a mixture with the miso, sake, honey, ginger, garlic, black garlic.
- Step 12 11. Add the fat to the pan. Also use the fat rendered from the duck breast. Once the fat is hot, add the miso mixture to the pan, stirring it often. We want it to toast and not burn.
- Step 13 12. Once you feel it is toasted and its aroma is coming off strong, about 2 minutes, set the heat to high and add the dashi you made before (after straining out the mushrooms and katsuobushi). Get it to a rolling boil.
- Step 14 13. Cook the ramen as indicated on the package. Once the ramen is almost ready, taste the broth. If not savoury enough, add miso to it, or some soy sauce.
- Step 15 14. Slice the duck as thin as you would like it to be. To plate, drain the ramen and put it in empty bowls. Add the boiling broth to just cover the ramen. Lie some duck breast slices on top, on one side. Add some asparagus and asparagus tips. Add the black kale. Add some sliced spring onions. Top with some chilli oil’s drops and a sprinkle of furikake, or whatever condiment you like. Serve extremely hot.
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