I am writing with no clear goal here but here is what is up:

I had some luxurious free time when the babies were asleep and we were all in the kitchen. My wife and I had made our way to a local HEB and I was stocked up with pigs feet, a chicken carcass, garlic, ginger, scallions, and some pork shoulder.  I also had a heap of cabbage, onions, and carrots to make a trial run of my newest idea of easy ramen broth at home.

Maybe too much is just too much. I started with a pot full of onions, carrots and cabbage to start the broth. Pressure cooked for one hour and then all veggies removed, then adding blanched bones and pig feet. The final result was –  sugar-y. Which I suppose lends itself to reason. I was looking to increase the vegetable starch content of the broth, perhaps to give it body or to make it thicker slightly- I knew full well that the starches would simply break down over 12 hrs of pressure cooking and would just be sweet water. Carrot water. Onion water. Flavorful, to be sure, but probably just too many veggies for that amount of bones.

My secondary broth turned out to pretty outstanding on its own. The cooking liquid from the chasu pork plus the shoyu taré I had made cake out as an amazingly light but umami packed soup.

I’m overall disappointed in the tonkotsu broth but I’m happy to be back in the process. And I’m never mad at having tonkotsu broth in the fridge.