Japanese Crispy Pork Noodle Soup

From the picture, you probably wouldn't see this as a soup. But under all those delicious toppings is a light miso broth, rice noodles, then topped with various crisp fresh vegetables and pork that is crispy on the outside with a soft centre. This Asian soup is part Japanese inspired, and part Vietnamese. A bit like a Pho and topped with Japanese marinated eggs - which taste just soft and work so well in this dish.

I know its a bit of a long process, as I have slow cooked the pork shoulder for 7 hours, before then shredding and crisping up - but its all worth it and tastes so authentic. If you like this sort of dish - give it a go - its so tasty.

Ingredients (for the pork):

575kg pork shoulder steaks
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sake (Chinese wine)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. Chinese 5 spice powder
2 tbsp. brown sugar

Put all the above ingredients into a slow cooker and stir well. Cook on low for about 7 hours, or until the meat is falling apart. Take the meat out of the cooking liquor and shred (not too finely). To crisp up, add to a hot dry non stick pan and stir fry until crispy. Cover and keep warm.

For the soup:

Make up about 4 cups of miso soup using miso paste. Cook some rice noodles to pack instructions. Ladle some soup into a bowl and add some cooked noodles. Top with shredded carrot, shredded courgette, sliced spring onions (scallions) and fresh coriander.

To make it extra special I added marinated eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago) and a sesame garlic paste (recipes below).

For the eggs:

Soft boil 2 eggs by adding to boiling water and cooking for 5 minutes exactly. Peel (gently) and put into a bowl. Add 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup water,  1/2 cup sake and 2 tbsp. caster sugar. Stir gently and leave to marinade for about 4 hours (can be up to 24). When making the miso, warm the eggs up briefly in the soup and then you can halve the eggs and serve on top of the soup.

For the sesame garlic paste:

Finely chop 7 cloves garlic. Add about 6 of them to a small pan with 1/4 cup olive oil and cook on a very low heat until brown (don't burn). Put into a pot with 1/4 cup sesame oil and use a hand blender to blitz. Put back in the saucepan and add the last clove of garlic along with 1 chopped Thai red chilli. Cook on a low heat for about 1 minute and then take off the heat to cool. Pound 2 tbsp. sesame seeds in a pestle and mortar until a paste. Stir into the garlic oil mixture. Spoon a good tbsp. onto the soup for a burst of flavour!

Enjoy!