Ramen - the good, the bad, and the downright ugly

[Amber]

Inspired by a thread on Fark where some guy said that properly made, Ramen is one of the best three foods ever, I decided to experiment with ramen today.

I started with a roast chicken flavored ramen pack. So, chicken, I like this ginger peanut chicken dish, so I added ginger, peanut butter, and soy sauce. (Tip. Don't add peanut butter to boiling water; it foams up and makes a mess.) Next, after cleaning up the stove, I searched the dark recesses of the fridge, searching for leftovers to add. Aha! leftover brussels sprouts and a hard-boiled egg. Tossed those in, added the noodles and then the flavoring pack, and wound up with the worst tasting thing I've ever put in my mouth. Peanut butter and eggs really don't go together at all.

So, what strange ramen inspired creations have y'all come up with?

[LMingrone]

http://www.ramenlicious.com/

As much of a cliche as it is, I survived on Ramen through school. I love me some grilled artichokes and garlic over some Ramen and grilled chicken. With some lemon and pepper. MMMMMM

[DCSL]

Ditto. On surviving on ramen, anyway. I ate nothing but ramen and instant pancakes for three months or so to afford my first bass guitar while I was getting my bachelor's. If you get creative with it, it can be sooooo good and filling.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Oriental flavored ramen with only half of the packet of flavoring dumped in. Boil it in vegetable stock. Add a couple tablespoons of milk, half-and-half or cream. Scallions, pepper, and garlic. A handful of meat- grilled chicken, shrimp, pork, or even beef.

I also like chicken ramen with half the seasoning packet, boiled in chicken stock, and with sour cream, bacon, and dill mixed in.

[Stanley Burrell]

Instant chili > instant noodles.

I done said it.

[Androidpk]

Oriental flavored ramen with only half of the packet of flavoring dumped in. Boil it in vegetable stock. Add a couple tablespoons of milk, half-and-half or cream. Scallions, pepper, and garlic. A handful of meat- grilled chicken, shrimp, pork, or even beef.

I also like chicken ramen with half the seasoning packet, boiled in chicken stock, and with sour cream, bacon, and dill mixed in.

I need to go buy some ramen now. Bastard.

[Xanator]

Inspired by a thread on Fark where some guy said that properly made, Ramen is one of the best three foods ever, I decided to experiment with ramen today.

I started with a roast chicken flavored ramen pack. So, chicken, I like this ginger peanut chicken dish, so I added ginger, peanut butter, and soy sauce. (Tip. Don't add peanut butter to boiling water; it foams up and makes a mess.) Next, after cleaning up the stove, I searched the dark recesses of the fridge, searching for leftovers to add. Aha! leftover brussels sprouts and a hard-boiled egg. Tossed those in, added the noodles and then the flavoring pack, and wound up with the worst tasting thing I've ever put in my mouth. Peanut butter and eggs really don't go together at all.

So, what strange ramen inspired creations have y'all come up with?

This sounds so awful. It's sort of painful to even think about. I used to take Ramen to lunch, crush it up inside the package, open the package and pour the seasoning packet in, then shake it up and eat it dry. Maruchan chicken-flavor only. I had a meal plan that worked at the Quiznos in the cafeteria in college.

[Geshron]

Ditto. On surviving on ramen, anyway. I ate nothing but ramen and instant pancakes for three months or so to afford my first bass guitar while I was getting my bachelor's. If you get creative with it, it can be sooooo good and filling.

Much love to fellow bassists, I received mine at 17. My Dad tried to bribe me with one by getting good grades. It went from get A's, to B's, to C's to, well, I think you should have one anyway.

As a former touring musician ramen was our god and friend. I have seen some guys put peanut butter in them afterward, not during boiling. Never tried it myself, it's good with meat as it's appearance on the package is misleading without it! The cups are awesome for microwaves too. Reminds me of tour, ahh.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Re-reading the OP, if you ever want like, a peanut sauce, just make that and put it on your noodles. The egg + brussel sprouts would have been fine on their own, but neither of those (as you found out) mix with peanut sauce.

Take like a half cup of peanut butter, some soy sauce, some garlic salt or powder, some lemon juice, some chili/cayenne pepper, a little bit of ginger and like 3-4 tbs of water, and microwave it in a bowl for 40 seconds, then dump that over plain noodles. It'll be like Thai peanut noodles!

[Amber]

Take like a half cup of peanut butter, some soy sauce, some garlic salt or powder, some lemon juice, some chili/cayenne pepper, a little bit of ginger and like 3-4 tbs of water, and microwave it in a bowl for 40 seconds, then dump that over plain noodles. It'll be like Thai peanut noodles!

Thanks! I'm definitely going to have to try that.

[Celephais]

This sounds so awful. It's sort of painful to even think about. I used to take Ramen to lunch, crush it up inside the package, open the package and pour the seasoning packet in, then shake it up and eat it dry. Maruchan chicken-flavor only. I had a meal plan that worked at the Quiznos in the cafeteria in college.
I liked eatting it dry too, except I wouldn't really crush it up that much, I'd eat it more like chips.

[Tisket]

Although we have some in our end of the world emergency food supplies, I've never been lucky (unlucky? brave?) enough to try Ramen before. Maybe I'll have to dig some out of the box in the basement and give it a try. Future nuclear winter, roving bands of cannibals, and/or zombies be damned.

[thefarmer]

Azn ramen is so much better than american ramen. Mainly because 99% of them come with their own hot sauce.


edit: With that said.. sauteed onions in sesame oil, diced ham, and an egg dropped into the boiling water (eggdrop soup style) in any of the oriental flavored types is pretty damn good.

[Back]

http://www.ramenbox.com/order/home.php

http://www.ramenbox.com/order/skin1/infusion/_images/home_promo_test.png

[Revalos]

http://www.ramenbox.com/order/home.php


http://forgetomori.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bowmandsa2.jpg

My god...its full of Ramen. I'll be ordering one of those right now.

[Methais]

So, what strange ramen inspired creations have y'all come up with?

Freshly boiled Ramen is also great for wiping when you're out of toilet paper.

[Stunseed]

< http://www.ramenbox.com/order/home.php >

Those are some expensive ramen noodles.

[Amber]

FACT: According to a Japanese poll in the year 2000, Instant Noodles were the most important Japanese invention of the century. Karaoke came second, with the Compact Disc only coming in fifth.

The country that brought us our cell phones, mechanical pencils, portable EKGs, graphing calculators, CD players, microprocessors, camcorders, VCRs, DVDs, wrist-watches, flat panel displays, nuclear medicine, and so on and so on rates ramen as their most important invention???

[Back]

The country that brought us our cell phones, mechanical pencils, portable EKGs, graphing calculators, CD players, microprocessors, camcorders, VCRs, DVDs, wrist-watches, flat panel displays, nuclear medicine, and so on and so on rates ramen as their most important invention???

Well, they are damn tasty.

[Methais]

I'm shocked that Final Fantasy isn't on that list.

And bukkake.

[iJin]

Asian ramen does kick ass.

[SHAFT]

???

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t311/nekodrea/ranma-1-2-ranma-1-2-420.jpg

[Amber]

http://assets.hulu.com/shows/key_art_ramen_fighter_miki.jpg

Ramen Fighter Miki can kick Ranma ass.

[Back]

I never tamper with scientists products...

Nissin Hot & Spicy Sabor A Pollo Bowl Noodles boggles my being. It may be the Soup Booster.

http://content.costco.com/Images/Content/Product/374959b.jpg

[DCSL]

Rereading this thread has made me instantly hungry. At one in the morning. Damnit.

[Ceyrin]

Start with a couple of clean scallions.

Slice the scallions up and separate the white from the green (I hope I don't need to go in to further detail here).

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a sauce pan. Add the whites of the scallion and brown slight.

Next, add two boneless porkchops cut into strips, half of the seasoning packet (I prefer oriental season ramen) and a tablespoon of soy sauce. Stir.

You're not trying to cook the pork all the way through here, remember you still have to add water and bring it to a boil. You just want to seal the outsides of the pork.

Once the pork is sealed, add an appropriate amount of water based on how many packets of noodles you're cooking. Bring the water to a boil.

Add the noodles to the boiling water, and turn it down to about medium ~ medium-high. (This is usually between 5-7 on most electric ranges)

After a few minutes of boiling check your noodles with OCD fervence to attain the proper texture you desire (Don't forget about carry-over-cooking, this is where the noodles will continue to cook even after you take them off the stove... because the water is still boiling hot).

When the noodles are close to your desired texture, crack and add one whole egg to the boiling water, giving it a minute or two to cook the white (try not to stir very much or disturb the egg, otherwise you end up with something akin to egg-drop-ramen and it's not as pretty).

Take your ramen off the stove, add the green of the scallion and try not to burn yourself.

Enjoy =)

I also do something else with ramen where I basically turn it in to lo mein or yakisoba... but that's an entirely different ordeal. It can be a lot of work to put in to a bag of instant noodles, for sure.

[Ceyrin]

The country that brought us our cell phones, mechanical pencils, portable EKGs, graphing calculators, CD players, microprocessors, camcorders, VCRs, DVDs, wrist-watches, flat panel displays, nuclear medicine, and so on and so on rates ramen as their most important invention???

What do you think all these inventors survived on during college? Same thing we did.

[droit]

Mr. Noodle

Published: January 9, 2007

The news last Friday of the death of the ramen noodle guy surprised those of us who had never suspected that there was such an individual. It was easy to assume that instant noodle soup was a team invention, one of those depersonalized corporate miracles, like the Honda Civic, the Sony Walkman and Hello Kitty, that sprang from that ingenious consumer-product collective known as postwar Japan.

But no. Momofuku Ando, who died in Ikeda, near Osaka, at 96, was looking for cheap, decent food for the working class when he invented ramen noodles all by himself in 1958. His product — fried, dried and sold in little plastic-wrapped bricks or foam cups — turned the company he founded, Nissin Foods, into a global giant. According to the company’s Web site, instant ramen satisfies more than 100 million people a day. Aggregate servings of the company’s signature brand, Cup Noodles, reached 25 billion worldwide in 2006.

There are other versions of fast noodles. There is spaghetti in a can. It is sweetish and gloppy and a first cousin of dog food. Macaroni and cheese in a box is a convenience product requiring several inconvenient steps. You have to boil the macaroni, stir it to prevent sticking and determine through some previously obtained expertise when it is “done.” You must separate water from noodles using a specialized tool, a colander, and to complete the dish — such an insult — you have to measure and add the fatty deliciousness yourself, in the form of butter and milk that Kraft assumes you already have on hand. All that effort, plus the cleanup, is hardly worth it.

Ramen noodles, by contrast, are a dish of effortless purity. Like the egg, or tea, they attain a state of grace through a marriage with nothing but hot water. After three minutes in a yellow bath, the noodles soften. The pebbly peas and carrot chips turn practically lifelike. A near-weightless assemblage of plastic and foam is transformed into something any college student will recognize as food, for as little as 20 cents a serving.

There are some imperfections. The fragile cellophane around the ramen brick tends to open in a rush, spilling broken noodle bits around. The silver seasoning packet does not always tear open evenly, and bits of sodium essence can be trapped in the foil hollows, leaving you always to wonder whether the broth, rich and salty as it is, is as rich and salty as it could have been. The aggressively kinked noodles form an aesthetically pleasing nest in cup or bowl, but when slurped, their sharp bends spray droplets of broth that settle uncomfortably about the lips and leave dots on your computer screen.

But those are minor quibbles. Ramen noodles have earned Mr. Ando an eternal place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don’t have to teach him anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/opinion/09tue3.html?scp=3&sq=Momofuku%20Ando&st=cse


R.I.P. Mr. Noodle.

[radamanthys]

http://imgur.com/arBmC.jpg

[Delias]

Re-reading the OP, if you ever want like, a peanut sauce, just make that and put it on your noodles. The egg + brussel sprouts would have been fine on their own, but neither of those (as you found out) mix with peanut sauce.

Take like a half cup of peanut butter, some soy sauce, some garlic salt or powder, some lemon juice, some chili/cayenne pepper, a little bit of ginger and like 3-4 tbs of water, and microwave it in a bowl for 40 seconds, then dump that over plain noodles. It'll be like Thai peanut noodles!

One: I will give you some nut sauce.

Two: I used to date a girl who would break up dry ramen, pour some olive oil on it, and mix it into salad.

[Abilene]

I have loved Ramen since a child, but I'm ridiculously picky about it. I only like 1/2 packet of flavor, otherwise it's too strong and has a funky after taste. Also the noodles have to be cooked just enough to separate. Then it has to be eaten before the noodles get soggy.

[Nathala Crane]

That Nongshim Shin Ramyun stuff is just awesome.

[Warriorbird]

Garlic, oregano, basil, sliced tomato, diced chicken.

[iJin]

I am so fucking hungry. A good ramen would be nice to eat. All I've been fucking eating is goddamn hot pockets while I drive to class.

I think I shall now put basil in my ramen, because I love basil.

[Delias]

Ever try an Exlax Hotpocket? Twice the diarrhea in half the time.

[Kenn]

The best recipe I've found so far is from a restaurant called Momofuku in New York. The guy made a cook book called Momofuku and it has the whole recipe in there. Just a heads up... it's rather involved. Takes about a day to get everything prepared to start making it.

[AnticorRifling]

I just like the chicken flavored packs, nuke em and eat em. Hell sometimes you just crush them up, add the flavor, shake the bag, eat them dry and uncooked.