It’s impossible to talk about ramen without talking about noodles. Not just because ramen is a noodle-based dish, but because the noodles are one of the only places where ramen has rules. In order for a dish to be ramen, it has to use the right noodles. Ramen can be topped with anything, seasoned with anything and even not have any soup. But, no matter what, ramen has to have ramen noodles.
Ramen noodles are made – with a few exceptions – using a concentrated alkaline solution called kansui. The kansui – as well as countless other factors – gives ramen noodles their distinctive taste, yellow-ish colour and texture. Fresh pasta restaurants and ramen shops have both become increasingly popular in the UK over the past few years, but ramen’s history and culture is, in many ways, almost the inverse of pasta’s. While pasta has existed in Italy for centuries, ramen only really became established in Japan after the Second World War. And while traditional pasta is associated with grandmotherly love and home-cooked meals, no Japanese person will have nostalgic memories of their obaachan rolling out ramen noodle dough.
Ramen noodles are not traditionally made at home for a few reasons. One key one is that ramen noodle dough is made with very little water. This makes it deliciously chewy and firm but also so tough it can break a hand-cranked machine designed for rolling out pasta. While chefs specialising in pasta, soba or udon all pride themselves on making noodles with as little machinery as possible, that’s simply not possible with ramen. This is not to say that other Japanese noodles – or, indeed, fresh pasta – are easy to roll out or shape by hand. Udon is similarly tough, and is often kneaded by foot. Soba dough is awkwardly brittle and fragile due to the lack of gluten in buckwheat flour. But, realistically, industrial machines are the only way to roll out modern-day ramen’s super low-hydration dough at scale, and the vast majority of ramen shops in Japan rely on factories to make their noodles.