Ramen at 11pm is a love language

My father never said much at dinner. He worked late, came home tired and went straight to the television. But on nights when one of us came in after eleven, soaked from the rain or sad about something we would not explain, he would get up without a word and put a pot of water on the stove.

It was usually instant ramen, improved: an egg dropped in at the last moment, a handful of spring onion, a spoon of the chilli oil he kept in the fridge door. He would set the bowl down, go back to the television and not ask a single question. It took me twenty years to understand that the bowl was the question, and eating it was the answer.

Why late ramen hits different

There is a practical reason ramen belongs to the night. It is fast, it is hot, and it is mostly water, which is what a tired body wants. Salt and fat from the broth wake you up just enough. Noodles are soft enough to eat without thinking. It is the rare meal that asks nothing of you.

In Japan the late-night ramen shop is an institution for the same reason. Office workers stop on the way to the last train. Night-shift nurses eat standing at a counter. The chef rarely speaks, and nobody wants him to. The broth has been simmering since morning, so all the work is already done when you arrive.

The broth took twelve hours. The bowl took four minutes. That ratio is the whole point.

A late-night bowl in eight minutes

You do not need a twelve-hour broth to make a good bowl at eleven. You need a few things that keep in the fridge and one pot.

• A packet of good dried noodles, and throw away the flavour sachet if it tastes of dust.

• A spoon of white miso and a spoon of soy, whisked into the hot water as a quick broth.

• One egg, lowered in for six and a half minutes, then peeled under cold water.

• Spring onion, sesame and whatever chilli oil you are loyal to.

Cook the noodles in the broth itself, so the starch thickens it. Halve the egg over the top. Add the chilli last, where the person eating can see it, so they know how much you trusted them with.

The question in the bowl

I make this for my partner now, on the nights she comes home late from the hospital. I do not ask how the shift went. I put the water on. She sits at the counter and eats it without talking, and at some point halfway down the bowl she starts telling me anyway.

My father would have understood completely. He just would not have said so.