Making Dirty Mazemen with Sho Spaeth (Patreon)

Hey folks—Kenji here.

My friend and former Serious Eats colleague Sho Spaeth has a new book that just came out on October 14th (2025) called Homemade Ramen (October 14, 2025), and I’m so excited to finally tell you about it. I got to write the introduction, and I’ve been watching this book come together over the last couple of years — from Sho’s early testing notes to the final manuscript. It’s one of the most thoughtful, obsessive, and surprisingly practical cookbooks I’ve read in a long time. If you’ve ever wanted to truly understand how ramen works—from the inside out—this is the book.

Sho approaches ramen the same way I like to approach any recipe: by breaking it down to its fundamentals so you can really understand how it works. The book is organized around the five building blocks of ramen — tare (seasoning), fat, soup stock, noodles, and toppings — and each one gets its own deep dive. He explains not just how to make them, but why they behave the way they do, and how you can tweak them to your taste. There’s a lot of science, but it’s all in service of helping you make better noodles at home without losing sight of what makes ramen so comforting and fun.

There’s a great balance of complete “recipe sets” (like a classic shoyu ramen) and modular “components” you can mix and match — broths, flavored fats, noodle formulas, even make-ahead and storage guides so you can build your bowls on weeknights. Sho shows that ramen doesn’t have to be an all-day project; if you’ve got your components ready, it can be a quick, deeply satisfying weekday meal.

What I love about the book is that it captures Sho’s voice perfectly — equal parts food nerd and everyday cook. He writes about ramen the way musicians talk about jazz: learn the structure, then start improvising. It’s a book that’ll make you a better ramen cook, but also just a better cook in general.

A few weeks ago Sho came over to my kitchen to talk about the book and make a couple bowls of his “Dirty Mazemen” — a gloriously junky, salty-fishy, scallion-and-egg ramen that’s equal parts comfort food and mad-scientist experiment (you stick whole fish into a blender, Bass-O-Matic style). It’s the only recipe in the book that isn’t his original (it’s based on a legendary “dirty shoyu” from Keizo Shimamoto of ramen burger fame), and it was insanely good. We shot the whole thing, so you can see the process and get a feel for Sho’s style.

It perfectly captures the spirit of Homemade Ramen: deeply researched but not too precious to have fun with. You can watch the full video and find the recipe link below.

If you’re in Seattle there are a few signed copies at Book Larder. Otherwise you can pick it up wherever you normally get your books.

Order direct from the publisher here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324021001

Recipe: Dirty Mazemen from Homemade Ramen, by Sho Spaeth

AROMATIC LARD

MAKES 1 CUP (240 ML)

TOTAL COOK TIME: 15 minutes

ACTIVE TIME: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup (240 ml) rendered lard

1 head garlic, separated into cloves, peeled, smashed, and roughly chopped

A 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

Steps:

1. Combine the ingredients in a 2-quart saucepan and heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic and ginger begin to sizzle. Then cook, stirring constantly, until the garlic and ginger start to take on color, about 5 minutes.

2. Strain the lard through a fine-mesh strainer set over a small| mixing bowl. (The fried garlic and ginger can be reserved for another use or discarded.) Let cool to room temperature, then transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate until ready to use.

NIBO OIL

YIELD: About 1½ cups (350 ml)

TOTAL COOK TIME: 10 minutes

ACTIVE TIME: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1⅗ cups (400 ml) neutral oil

1 ounce (30 g) niboshi, torn by hand or clipped with scissors into small pieces

3 bunches scallions (180 g), thinly sliced

Steps:

1. Combine the oil and niboshi in a 3-quart saucier and heat over medium-high heat until it registers 300°F (148°C) on an instant-read thermometer.

3. Pour the oil through a fine-mesh strainer into a medium metal mixing bowl. (If desired, reserve the solids for Dirty Paste, page 287.) Let the oil cool to room temperature, then transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate.

1⅗ cups (400 ml) neutral oil

1 ounce (30 g) niboshi, torn by hand or clipped with scissors into small pieces

3 bunches scallions (180 g), thinly sliced

2. Add the scallions a handful at a time, pausing if the oil begins to foam up precipitously. Cook until the scallions smell sweet and just start to take on a brown color, about 8 minutes.

DIRTY PASTE

YIELD: A little less than ½ cup

(120 ml)

ACTIVE TIME: 3 minutes

Ingredients:

Fried niboshi and scallions from making Nibo Oil (see Nino Oil recipe above)

6 tablespoons (90 ml) hot Nibo Oil

Steps:

1. Combine the niboshi, scallions, and hot oil in the canister of a high-speed blender.

Blend on high until the fish and scallions are completely pulverized, about 3 minutes.

2. Transfer the contents of the blender to a sealable container. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until ready to use.

NIBO TARE

YIELD: About 1¾ cups (400 ml)

SOAKING TIME: 6 to 12 hours

TOTAL COOK TIME: 10 minutes

ACTIVE TIME: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1½ cups (350 ml) koikuchi soy sauce, divided

0.35 ounce (10 g) niboshi

A 3-inch square of kombu (6 g)

1 dried shiitake mushroom (3 g)

1 cup (240 ml) sake

0.2 ounce (6 g) katsuobushi

2 tablespoons (30 ml) mirin

2 tablespoons (30 ml)

fish sauce

3 tablespoons (27 g) Diamond

Crystal kosher salt

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon

(20 ml) oyster sauce

1 tablespoon (10 g) sugar

Steps:

1. Combine 1 cup (240 ml)| of the soy sauce, the niboshi, kombu, and shiitake in a resealable container and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight (12 hours)

2. Turn on your hood vent if you have one. Add the sake to a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-high and, using a long match or a kitchen lighter, carefully ignite the area above the boiling liquid, and cook until the flame dies down completely, 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Shake the container of soy sauce mixture several times, then transfer it to the saucepan.

Cook until faint bubbles start to form around the edges of the

pan (140° to 150°F/60° to 65°C), about 3 minutes. Remove the kombu; reserve for another use or discard.

4. Continue heating the mixture until it is steaming hot and bubbles have formed all around the edges of the pan

(185°F/85°C). Shut off the heat, add the katsuobushi, and let the mixture steep for 3 minutes.

5. Strain the mixture into a small metal mixing bowl. Add the remaining ½ cup (110 ml) soy sauce, the mirin, fish sauce, salt, oyster sauce, and sugar and stir until the salt is dissolved, about 1 minute. Transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate until ready to use.

DIRTY MAZEMEN

For each bowl of mazemen, you need:

2 tablespoons (30 ml) Nibo

Tare (page 190)

2 tablespoons (30 ml) lard or

Aromatic Lard (page 274)

1 tablespoon (15 ml) Dirty

Paste (page 287)

1 teaspoon (5 ml) rice vinegar

Pinch of white pepper, or more to taste

1 serving cooked noodles (any kind)

Other toppings if you like

1 Onsen Egg, soft poached egg, or raw egg yolk

Sliced scallions or naga negi for topping

1. Combine the tare, lard, dirty paste, rice vinegar, and white pepper in a medium metal mixing bowl.

2. Add the cooked noodles and, using tongs or chopsticks, stir them vigorously in the bowl until the sauce emulsifies, about 1 full minute.

3. Scrape the noodles into a warmed serving bowl and fold them over themselves to form a nest for the egg.

4. Arrange any toppings, if using, around the noodles. Nestle the onsen egg or egg yolk on top of the noodles and scatter sliced scallions or naga negi