Japanese-style soup

Source: original experiment
Preparation time: Under 10 minutes
Cooking time: About 5 minutes
Yield: One entree or two side servings

Ingredients

• 1 15-cent package ramen noodles
• 1 minute steak (such as a Steak-umm philly cheesesteak)
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp Mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)

Cooking instructions

1. Slice minute steak into suitably-Japanese-sized strips. Cook them.
2. Prepare ramen noodles as directed for a soup, EXCEPT don't add the colored MSG (a.k.a. "flavor" packet). Find creative uses for the "flavor" packet, such as giving annoying dogs massive migraines. One minute before the "noodles" are done "cooking," scramble the egg and add it and the mirin to the pot.
3. When "noodes" are "done," add the green onion and meat.
4. Enjoy.

Variations

• I've been told that for a proper Japanese-style broth you need to add some bonito flakes to the soup. I have no idea what a bonito is, nor where to find flakes of one. You can try using wasabi powder instead, but that probably won't have the desired effect. (Yes, I know that bonito is Japanese for tuna. When I wrote this recipe I didn't.)
• You can use other meats too. Just make sure they're cooked before adding them to the soup. You can't go wrong with shrimp or chicken.
• Replace the ramen with rice, and stir-fry the meat along with some ginger, minced garlic, and your choice of vegetables in a wok, and instead of adding the egg and mirin to the rice, add the rice to the wok, stir-fry until golden brown, then add the egg and mirin and stir-fry until the egg is done cooking. Congratulations, you've just turned a basic Japanese-style soup into basic Japanese-style fried rice. Replace the mirin with chili-garlic paste and you've got Chinese-style fried rice, and replace it with Sri Racha (hot chili 'ketchup') and you've got Vietnamese-style fried rice, and replace it with some unsalted peanuts and lime sections and remove the egg and you've got Thai-style fried rice. Pseudo-oriental food works in mysterious ways.
• If you're into that sort of thing, adding some crumbled nori (dried and roasted seaweed, the stuff used to wrap sushi) just before serving can be good. Your mileage may vary.

For a Japanese broth recipe, see dashi. Bonito are a kind of mackerel. Bonito flakes are made by sun-drying the fish and then running them through something like wood-chopper.

As an irrelevant aside, John Lennon titled a collection of Greatest Hits "Shaved Fish" with a picture of a box of bonito on the cover.