Ramen

First of all, Ramen is Japanese, or at least a word born in Japan. Although the true origin of the word is not yet identified, there are two theories: One is that in Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan, where Sapporo-Ramen speaks for itself of its fine "al dente" noodles and rich soup often enhanced with "miso", fermented bean paste, and butter, there was a shop where ramen was allegedly invented (this calls for another heated discussion). The restaurant was a small Chinese eatery where the owner liked the sound of Chinese chefs calling out "hao-la!" or somesuch to mention the order is ready. The "la" is a grammatical element in Chinese indicating preterite (past) tense. Though the word alone doesn't mean anything whatsoever, the restaurant owner lady liked the cheerful sound of it and named her recent invention "La-Men" (Men means noodles).

1) Add a package of ramen noodles (not the sauce!) to a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. It stretches the canned soup to three or four decent-sized servings, and the ramen soaks up the Campbell-y goodness quite nicely.

2) Add a raw egg to a pot of Ramen while it's "cooking". (Be quick though, as you've only got the three magical minutes.) The egg will cook and break apart, and in the end, you'll have a fairly reasonable facsimile of Egg Drop Soup.

3) Add some chopped green onions and some of those tasty Chun King crispy fried noodle things that come in a can to the top of a 12 cent bowl of ramen. Eat them with chopsticks. If you're on an all-nighter, you might even trick yourself into thinking you've got some mediocre Chinese takeout there. (well...ok. Extremely mediocre.)

I am no longer a starving college student, but I buy Ramen by the dozens because I really, really like it.

Ramen Ham & Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

• 1 package of Ramen
• 1/2 cup sliced carrot
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 package cheapo brand small package of sliced ham, (or any other meat is fine, except maybe pastrami.)
• 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup frozen peas

Ramen Crunch

Ingredients

• 1 package of Ramen

Ramen Stir Fry

Ingredients

• 1 package of Ramen
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 cup diced green pepper
• 1egg
• 1/2 package cheapo brand small package of sliced ham, (or any other meat is fine, except maybe pastrami.)

Pure Ramen

These are the steps one must take to prepare an optimal bowl of Chicken Sesame ramen:

1. Boil 2 cups water in a pan just deep enough so that when you place the ramen in the pot the water barely covers the ramen. Make sure you boil the ramen with the lid off. This is very important when creating the perfect bowl of broth.
2. Before your water comes to a boil run your ramen under hot tap water for at least a minute. This takes off some of the starch holding it in that lovely shape and creates a superior bowl of broth. This is the most important step!
3. When your water comes to a boil add your ramen. After 1 minute of boiling turn the ramen over. As it softens stir it a little.
4. Take this opportunity to throw out the sesame oil packet they include-- it's shit. Go buy some high quality sesame oil at the store, you'll thank me and so will your ramen.
5. Telling when your ramen is done is really an art, I can't describe my method accurately. It has to do with lifting the cooking ramen noodles out of the boiling water and observing the way they clump to the fork. Never taste your ramen noodles, this is a waste of time. When the ramen is perfect it should be soft but firm.
6. Pour what's left of the water into your bowl and add the flavor packet. Never cook with the flavor packet in the water, this changes the flavor and creates inferior broth.
7. Add your own sesame oil to taste.
8. Enjoy a piping hot bowl of Ramen!

That's it. Ramen is all you need.

OK, I love starch and fat -- but it's far better than it sounds. Try it once, you will be converted. Mixing your cultures is one of the best ways to make food fresh and exciting. Put refried beans on your lefse! Dip your french fries in mayo! Eat Jell-o with chopsticks!

When I was in college I ate far too much Ramen and like many others I now loathe it. For a long time I just ate it with the flavor packet and water, then one day I happened across some recipes at a little web site called jerky.net and ended up obsessing over one of them.

This is that recipe. I believe jerky.net no longer serves the Ramen page, but I have a copy and will node the other recipes from it if there is any demand.

Overcast Afternoon

According to legend, this dish was first made after a large snowstorm, after waking up at 3:00 pm to a naturally drab day.

Ingredients

• 1 package of Ramen
• 1 Tbs. spicy chicken wing sauce
• 2 Tbs. Italian salad dressing
• 1 Tbs. barbecue sauce
• 1 Tbs. bleu cheese salad dressing

Prepare Ramen normally, without flavoring and drain the water. Add all other ingredients. Mix together.

Ramen Burger

Mmm.... grilled ramen.

1. Take one ordinary ramen noodle block, store flavor packet.
2. Prepare a marinade of goodness, usually involving hot sauce, chili powder, bbq sauce, or whatever you like.
3. Place block of noodles on a grill, and brush marinade on noodles constantly, until it is grilled to perfection. Failure to keep ramen moist with sauce will result in ramen combustion.
4. Place ramen block on bun, and dress to taste.

You can keep the flavoring packet for a nice addition to any salad you serve.

This is the way I generally prefer to eat ramen, it's very spicy.

Boil some ramen noodles in water, without stock or anything, and while it's cooking, put these things in a big bowl:

• 3 tablespoons or so of chili powder
• 2 tablespoons onion powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 really finely chopped clove fresh garlic
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoons olive oil

Enjoy.

Last-ditch-effort-at-emptying-freezer Ramen

• 1 packet of Ramen
• Single forlorn spring roll left in freezer
• Half chicken-breast lying at a respectable distance from spring roll in freezer
• 1 table spoon of any edible oil within reach
• Any spicy sauce available..amount depends on taste but I find that three generous dashes suffice. Dry Chili is preferable but is an activist of the Great Disappearing Foodstuff Conspiracy in my kitchen so I'll leave that to individual Ramen fans around the world.

When you cook them this way you only have to use about a quarter to half of the flavoring packet, which is nice, because it cuts down on the saltiness of the noodles and makes them generally healthier.

Another perk to cooking them this way is, if you have a favorite flavor of Ramen (say, Shrimp), and the store is all out of that kind, but you have a whole bunch of half-full(or half-empty) flavor packets at home, you can put that in with the noodles from any packet and have your Shrimp-flavored Ramen.

Good luck, and enjoy!

First of all, raamen (ラーメン) in their current form are essentially a Japanese invention, although egg noodles in soup are certainly known throughout Asia. The word comes from Chinese 撈麺 (Mandarin lao1mian4), literally just "handmade noodles", and has been known in Japan since at least 1665. Things didn't change much until instant ramen was invented by Momofuku Ando of Nissin in 1958. While the original soup hasn't made too many inroads beyond Korea, the instant variety propagated throughout Asia in the blink of an eye, and to the college dorms of America and Europe only a moment later.

Enough lecturing, on with the show... the following recipe serves 4 and should be consumed immediately.

Simple Shoyu Raamen (醤油ラーメン)

• 4 packs Chinese egg noodles
  • fresh if possible, but outside Japan you'll usually have to stick with dried and that's OK
• 8 slices roast pork (aka yakibuta, chaashuu, char siu)
• 1/2 long onion (Jp. naganegi, the closest thing in the English-speaking world is a leek)
• 1/4 bunch spinach (optional, see below for possible substitutes)
• Broth:
  • 6 cups water
  • 2 bouillon cubes (beef, pork, or chicken)
    • This is the easy way out, so if you have time and energy by all means prepare a real stock, preferably from pork. Without one, your results may be edible, but they will never be great.
  • 2 tbsp sake
  • 1 cm piece fresh ginger
  • the green (inedible) part of two long onions or one leek
• Spice (per serving!):
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp lard or sesame oil

1. Slice ginger. Cut green part of long onion into halves. Bring water, stock cubes, sake, ginger and green onion to boil in large pot. Keep on a rolling boil for about 5 minutes, then strain. Discard everything but the broth.
2. Blanch spinach and drain. Squeeze out excess water and cut into 5-cm lengths. Slice white part of long onion thinly.
3. Add spice to each individual serving bowl.
4. Boil noodles for 3 minutes, then drain.
5. Pour broth into bowls on top of the spice. Add noodles to soup, top with roast pork, spinach and thinly sliced long onion (the previously unused white part, that is).

The "Big Three" Japanese styles are:

1. salty or shio ramen (塩ラーメン), which leaves out the soy
2. soy or shoyu ramen (醤油ラーメン), as demonstrated here
3. miso ramen (味噌ラーメン), a specialty of Sapporo

Etiquette notes

Ramen should be consumed with much slurping gusto, preferably while reading a shounen manga so that you do not spray everybody in the vicinity with noodle juice. Almost-obligatory side orders are a half portion of gyoza (餃子) and a beer. In Japan, most ramen places (ramenya) worth their salt will offer you a free bowl of rice on the side if you ask, although then again, at a ramenya worth its salt the soup portion will be so humongous that you won't need to bother...

Miso-Ramen

1 packet beef ramen
water
soy sauce
rice vinegar
sesame seeds
1 packet instant miso, any flavor.

prepare ramen as instructed on packet. Add 1 teaspoon sesamae seeds to water before starting. Boil 3 minutes, stir in flavoring, etc etc. THEN... add 1-2 teaspoons of soy sayce, a dash (between half and a full teaspoon) of rice vinegar, and the miso. Boil 1 minute longer. Serve immediately.

This yields a bowl of soup that doesn't taste like ramen, doesnt taste like miso, but is tasty and foodlike. The miso adds texture to the soup so it's just not a bowl of broth, and the sesame seeds release oil as they boil to give a richer soup as well. This recipe works just as well adding only the seasonings and not the miso. Of course it's no longer miso-ramen then, just a flavored, better bowl of ramen, but hey.

Chicken Noodle Ramen

1 packet chicken ramen
1 large/2 small can(s) chicken, white meat, in WATER, not oil.
pre-ooked carrot, celery, onion, or peas

Pour water off of chicken into a measuring cup. If it's not 2 cups, top off with water. Bring to a boil and prepare ramen noodles as usual in the juice/water mixture. About a minute before the noodles are done, add the chunks of canned chicken, veggies if you want them, and the flavor packet. Boil gently for remaining minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

You get a pretty decent chicken noodle soup this way. Using the chicken juice gives the noodles a tasty flavor and makes them release starch, thickening the broth just a bit. The chicken and veggies, of course, makes it seem like "real food". Not bad, although it still tastes a million times better on a campout than in your own kitchen.

Ramen is an excellent way to get rid of the leftovers in your refrigerator. There is a great basic recipe that can be used to make a surprisingly good meal that is cheap, simple, and helps to clear the fridge shelves. The amounts are, necessarily, imprecise - if that bothers some of you engineer types out there, then you have not read enough Dilbert cartoons!

Ingredients

• Ramen noodles of course - about 1 package per person
• Some form of already cooked meat - a couple of ounces per serving (tonight I am using leftover Filet Mignon from our Labor Day dinner last night - I am having trouble not drooling on my keyboard)
• Some form of precooked vegetables - broccoli, chopped spinach, squash, and many other vegetables do quite well. A mix of colors is even better, considering the oriental fondness for presenting attractive dishes. Veggies with stronger flavors need to be used in smaller amounts to avoid overpowering the overall taste.
• Teryaki sauce - about two tablespoons per Ramen packet. The thin liquid is the best, and soy sauce can also be used in a pinch.
• Eggs - one per one or two packages depending on taste.
• Anything else appropriate - use your imagination! Many foods will work - sauteed mushrooms, small amounts of mozarella cheese, even leftover scrambled eggs. If it tastes good and fits with the overall scheme, it's fair game.

Preparation

Boil the noodles for a minute or two in an imprecise but adequate volume of water. Turn the burner to low and drain the water out to about half the depth of the noodles. Set the saucepan back on the still-hot burner and break about half your eggs onto the noodles. (If you are using just one, skip this step.)

Let the eggs sit and begin to cook on the noodles. Dump in the chopped up meat, vegetables, teryaki sauce, and one-half of the flavor powder usually found in foil packets enclosed in the Ramen package. When the eggs have begun to solidify somewhat, stir everything up thoroughly. Turn off the burner, crack in any remaining eggs, stir thoroughly again, and set the saucepan to the side with a lid on for five minutes or so while you get bowls and spoons out and set the table.

This results in a reasonably thick, moist, and very tasty form of Ramen - if it seems congealed, just add some hot water to thin it slightly. It is also very quick and easy to prepare. It can be eaten with a fork or with chopsticks very easily as well, in fact a spoon is probably more difficult to use than other utensils.

My five minutes was up ten minutes ago! I'm hungry and my Ramen is waiting for me!

Of course, you can find strictly vegetarian gourmet ramen at certain health food and specialty stores, but it costs a dollar or so a pop. Kind of defeats the purpose of ramen noodles, don't you think? You might as well buy yourself an actual meal at those prices.

Ramen noodles