Mayu (Black Garlic Oil) for Ramen Recipe

Tonkotsu ramen's foundation is the rich, creamy pork broth of Japan's Kyushu region, but if you're making each element from scratch (noodles and charshu, too), it's not an easy task. Each element takes time to prepare before they're ready to combine in the bowl just before serving, and some of those elements take hours or even days if you want to do it right.

Mayu, black garlic oil, is one of these elements. Like rolling in the snow naked right next to a hot tub or moving out to the West Coast (even temporarily), burnt garlic oil is one of those things that seems like an inherently bad idea. That is, until you actually try it. For those of you who like to mix raw garlic into their ramen, I'd suggest giving the mayu a shot.

Mayu can be a little tricky to make—it's all about a controlled burn. As you slowly cook grated garlic in oil, it undergoes the Maillard reaction—the series of chemical reactions that cause foods to turn brown and adds complexity to their flavor as new aromatic compounds are formed.

Normally, the standing wisdom on the Maillard reaction is to get your food as brown as possible without actually turning black—an indication that it's burnt and acrid, and bitter flavors will begin to appear. With mayu, you throw that wisdom out the window and take your garlic well past the stage that a French chef would allow.

But here's the thing: let it get black too fast and you end up cooking all the flavor out of it, leaving you with an acrid, burnt mess. You have to cook it very slowly, removing the garlic from heat as soon as it reaches black, so that some of its flavor can still be preserved.

Some folks cook their garlic in sesame oil from the start. I find that the sesame oil becomes overly bitter if you do this, so I prefer to cook in neutral canola oil, blending in some roasted sesame oil in after the garlic is done cooking to preserve its fresh flavor.

The result is a pitch-black condiment that not only looks awesome floating on top of your soup, but also adds a layer of complexity that you never knew existed.