The broth takes a long time to make but the end result is worth it. If you have a ceramic nabe pot, I would highly recommend using it, if not, a shallow pot will be fine for serving.
Ingredients
2 kg pork bones with meat, 1 joint and 1 knuckle (washed and scrubbed)
1 cup mirin (Japanese rice wine)
1 cup Japanese soy sauce
water.
1 large onion
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 thumb size ginger, peeled
4 tbs of red or white miso.
1/4 cup chopped green onion for serving
1/2 head of Chinese cabbage (cut to serving size)
salt and pepper to taste
How to
In a large pot, put water, soy sauce, mirin to boil on high heat.
grill onion,garlic and ginger until charred - this will bring out the sweetness of the ingredients when stewing.
Add pork, onion, garlic and ginger into the pot of the boiling liquid, if the liquid does not cover all the ingredients, add more until the liquid just about covers everything. After all, it's the soup, we want.
As the water is boiling for the 1st 5 minutes with all the ingredients in, scoop up the foam and fat from the broth and throw them away. Those are blood from inside the bone and left over fat which will make the soup smell bad during storage.
Don't over salt the soup at this stage as we will be adding miso before serving. Miso will add extra saltiness and flavor to the soup, so don't worry if it's not perfect now.
Boiling on high for 4-6 hours, checking every half and hour to make sure the water is not over boil, or if there is enough water in the pot. Why boil for this long? The longer you boil at high heat, the more chance the marrow from the bones will seep out and dissolve into the liquid. The resulting liquid will be cloudy and rich from all the nutrition from the bones and meat! All those vegetables we put in earlier will have almost dissolved completely.
Remove the bones that have no meat on it and add the Chinese cabbage and dissolve Miso into the soup and transfer the soup to a serving pot along with some left over meat and bones. Adjust the soup to taste and serve pipping hot with rice or noodles.
Serve 4.
I serve in my favorite ceramic nabe pot and keep the soup simmering with a portable gas stove.