Missing Japan: Recreating Shinshinmen

If you were a Liberty Bell in Japan, you went to Yokohama-Ya. It was the squadron's favorite ramen restaurant and Glenn's as well. He has especially been missing his favorite food so we attempted to recreate it this week and I think we got pretty close!

Step 1: But this instant ramen. We're not recreating the wheel here.

Step 2: We took a few hints from Alton Brown here and soaked the raw, 1/2 lb of ground pork in a mixture of 3 oz soy sauce, 1 tsp cornstarch, 1 T rice vinegar and 1 T of asian hot sauce. We let it sit on the counter for 20 or so while we prepared the noodles.

Step 3: We cooked the ground pork in a skillet and added 1/2 of the 4 green onions we chopped up.

Step 4: We followed the directions on the package for the ramen and then topped it with the pork and the rest of the green onions. Delish!

And of course, it wouldn't be the shinshinmen experience without gyoza! We used the other 1/2 pound of groud pork and added to to it:
- 2 chopped leaks
- 1 grated carrot
- 1/2 T of minced ginger
- 1 T of brown sugar
We sauteed everything in a pan, added the pork and then let it cool.

 I used prepackaged wonton wrappers and filled them with about 1 T of filling. I think we made about 30 gyoza with the 1/2 pound of meat.

 Glenn pan fried them in about 1/8 inch of oil and we let them drain on papertowels.

 A little taste of Japan hear at home! We are definitely going to have to make this again!