March is National Noodle Month and ramen of course is always an excellent choice for celebrating. Now some sites will tell you to make noodle crafts or what-not, but I say noodles are for eating, especially ramen.
I’ve posted this a few years ago, but try out this noodle quiz (PDF)
During March, please send me your wildest, but tastiest recipes, and I’ll be posting them all month. I also have an archive to go back through and pull out some weird stuff. If possible, attach pics to the email!
Today for lunch it was time for leftovers, leftovers and ramen! I had a brat that I cooked yesterday and to go with it, I cooked up some GreeNoodle Yakisoba flavor from RamenPlace.com.
The noodles themselves are made with “Moroheiya” aka “mallow leaf” which, according to the Japanese Health Ministry, “contains great amounts of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers in quantities that surpass most known vegetables and herbs”.
This leaf gives the noodles a green color and they remain slightly chewy after cooking. The packet comes with some dried veggies, seasoning, and oil/sauce. I cooked these up in a couple minutes, drained, added seasonings, and stirred it up. The flavor was an interesting mix of sweet, savory, and just a very slight spiciness. The dried vegetables, mainly carrots, corn, and I believe cabbage, added some nice extra flavor. The oil really added a lot to this dish. I ended up only using about 2/3rds of the seasoning since it was in danger of becoming too salty. I really enjoyed these noodles. They felt healthier, but tasted better than regular noodles.
Here is Hans’ review of this same flavor. I did not get any of the unpleasant earthy flavors he mentioned, I really enjoyed mine!
Today for lunch, I decided to dig into my box of goodies from RamenPlace.com. I decided on the Long Kow Crystal Noodle (Spicy Sesame Paste) flavor. The noodles in this are the translucent crystal noodles, which are thin and have a good flavor and texture. Also included was a soup cube, a compressed cube version of the standard flavor pack, and sesame paste. I made a mistake when I boiled the water in that I didn’t boil enough, so I’d recommend you boil 2 cups or more so you don’t run out like I did.
After adding the extra water, I stirred in the soup cube and sat down to eat. The last step of prep is adding the sesame paste. This proved to be difficult. I ended up using the back end of my fork to scrape out the paste. I then stirred the noodles, but a couple chunks of the sesame paste remained. I think next time, I need to warm the paste so that it’s easier to extract and dissolve. I have a few more of this type of ramen, so if I figure out the trick, I’ll post it here.
Despite my issues with cooking this, I have to say that this ramen was delicious. The noodles were awesome, almost invisible in the soup and with a great texture. The broth was spicy, but not over the top. The soup cube has some seaweed in it that added some flavor and texture. The sesame paste added a note of sesame which is always good on noodles.
I finished the noodles and then gulped the soup. The flavor of the bowl was excellent overall. I don’t do star ratings here (that’s Hans’ gig), but I did enjoy this. I wish the bowl was slightly larger perhaps, and I wish I had a better method for extracting and mixing the sesame paste, but all in all, I liked this one.
Sorry there’s no more pictures today. The noodles are so transparent that the picture of the bowl, with flash, made the bowl look empty!
A ramen shop in Tokyo, aptly named Niku-ya (Butcher Shop) takes pork ramen to a whole new level. Every February 9th, you don’t get the normal amount of pork, you get 60 times the normal amount of pork, because February 9th is “Super Meat Day”. This means instead of 1 slice, you get 60 slices. You really have to see the video to understand just how much pork this is for one ramen bowl.
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Even though the video is in Japanese, the imagery is what impresses. Each bowl has about 2 and 2/3rds to 3 pounds of pork!
As it turns out, Niku-ya doesn’t even consider themselves a ramen shop, they’re a meat shop, and so if you can’t make Feb 9, you can attend Meat Day on the 29th of each month. If any reader has visited, I’d love to see some pictures!
RamenPlace.com was nice enough to send me a box of ramen goodies, most of which I have not tried before. Over the next few weeks and months, I plan on doing some reviews of them. Before they sent me the box, they asked me to choose some varieties from their store and I must say that I was quite impressed with the selection, including several varieties of ramen I’ve never seen before. Personally I’m excited to try the potato noodle soup.
I did make the shrimp ramen pictured above with my kid. We both enjoyed it, but it needs more water than is called for in the directions or the noodles will be too al dente. Since I’ve had that ramen before, I didn’t write up a full review, but expect some from the next ones I try.
Hans Lienesch, aka The Ramen Rater, is well qualified to make this list, the Top 10 Instant Noodles in the World. Hans eats ramen more often than me and so I trust his judgement.
Hans says:
Over 30 years later and having officially sampled over 650 different unique varieties, I’ve come up with a list of my favorites. It changes from time to time as I find new varieties to enjoy, but here it is as it stands currently.
Personally I’ve tried #7 – Nong Shim Black, #4 Sapporo Ichiban, Japanese Style Noodles Chow Mein, and #8 Sapporo Ichiban Shio Ramen on this list and they were excellent. I do like the Nong Shim Black the best of those three. Has anyone else tried these?
When this website was first written, in 1996, there were no blogs. I would download emails using Eudora on my 486 in my dorm room and then hand edit HTML to add the new recipes. Back then the only people online were college students, which worked out well for me. Fast forward a few years and now we’ve got this whole twitter thing. I was resistant to it at first, but now I think it’s a great way to be notified of new posts on this blog and a good way for you to alert me of new cool ramen stuff. To that end, I finally have a twitter account for this blog: @RamenHomepage
When you’re making instant ramen which to you prefer? The packet which you cook on the stove or the styrofoam bowl which is more portable? Personally, I’ve always preferred the ramen packet as I’ve been eating it that way for over 20 years.
Loading ...Hans at the RamenRater let me know that tomorrow is Momofuku Ando Day, at least at a hospital in Dallas, Texas. Momofuku Ando, for those who don’t know, is the inventor of instant ramen, and obviously a genius. Since Wikipedia is down today, you won’t be able to read much about it there, so I’ll just link to Hans’ article.
Today I was looking through a Wikipedia entry all about the creator of instant noodles, Momofuku Ando. Much to my surprise, I noticed that there is a day commemorating him called Momofuku Ando Day! What’s strange about this is that it was founded by some healthcare workers – at a Dallas, Texas hospital!
What’s not so strange about this is why a day exists to honor the man.
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The government insisted that the companies that made noodles were too small to supply everyone.Ando decided that he would try to fill the demand. He is quoted as saying, “Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat.”
After a lot of hard work, 1958 proved a good year with the first instant noodles to be invented. Simply called Chikin ramen, they were a little pricy when they came out. After a bit of time, they came down in price. Now they’re considered to be one of the cheapest foods you can get.
I don’t ever watch Jimmy Fallon’s show, although he is hilarious. Over the holidays, a relative asked if I had seen the ramen chef, David Chang, on his show, and I was surprised to hear that I missed it. Anyway, for anyone else who missed it, here it is.
Also, here’s a bit about David Chang from another bio article on him:
But to those who worship the steamed pork buns at his Momofuku Noodle Bar or the rotisserie duck at Momofuku Ssam Bar, or compete in the fiendish online lottery for one of 12 seats at the high-end Momofuku Ko, Chang’s a culinary deity: At 34, he has already won a slew of awards and two Michelin stars, been called a cultural demigod and been compared to the top chefs of the world.