Book Review: Ivan Ramen by Ivan Orkin

After eating a fair amount of ramen, I was given a book called "Ivan Ramen" which sparked my interest in trying to cook my own bowl. The book is a must read for anyone interested in ramen - not just (aspiring) cooks. Ivan Orkin is the author of the book which tells his story as a trained French chef before moving to Japan with his Wife. After several unemployed years living in Tokyo, his wife encouraged him to set up a ramen shop. If you google Ivan now, the words "ramen genius" follow his name. He managed the rare feat of becoming a well known and respected ramen chef in Japan - the first "gaujin" (foreigner) to do so. He subsequently set up an "Ivan Ramen" shop in New York (which I am yet to visit) and is in the process of setting up a pizza chain called "Corner Slice".

I found his book compelling; the recipe for one bowl of ramen is spread over 15 pages with no less than 8 steps (chapters). Reading his book, I realized how complex ramen is yet each technique is within reach of the average home cook. If you can master a good bowl of ramen, it gives you a wide range of Japanese cooking skills to use on a variety of other dishes (like making good dashi "fish stock" or chashu "braised pork"). It is also the perfect dish for customization - your local identity in Japan can usually be tied to a type of ramen.

While I like his book, I haven't used it to cook a whole bowl. Some of his methods are confusing if you have never cooked ramen like the range of salts you can only find in Japan, using whole Japanese chickens for stock and making smaltz. The first recipe I read that gave me confidence to cook a bowl of ramen was Tim Anderson's Nanban (see separate post). Nanban is also my favourite London ramen shop. 

As I think about creating my own recipe, I keep coming back to Ivan's preference for lighter broths. The Nanban book is great but it focuses on the South of Japan where heavy tonkotsu broth is the staple. I want to try and make something that tastes amazing and complex but is not too fatty.

Here you can see Ivan's eight chapters to making ramen: Eight Steps to Perfect Ramen by Chef Ivan Orkin