Today I bring you my preparation method for ramen that I've worked on over a while now, in my quest for the perfect bowl of spicy ramen.
I'm very much a lover of spicy food. I grew up in the Middle-East and then finally Australia (where you'll find so foods from so many cultures; Thai, Korean, Turkish, Indian etc). I've always been an ardent fan of foods that make my mouth burn but also contribute such intense flavours that seem to match the intensity of the heat so well.
This, coupled with the inevitable love of Korea and it's culture after joining TL all those years ago, has lead to me craving and enjoying ramen!
So this is my recipe for all the spicy food lovers out there.
What You'll Need:
Shin Ramyun
(You can substitute for your favourite kind, but I'm going to go with the popular Korean brand!)
Sriracha, a piquant and flavoursome chilli & garlic hot sauce. Available at most Asian grocery stores (ones that want to be considered 'real' Asian grocery stores anyway, if they know what's good for them).
Cheese
Canned tuna in brine
1 egg
Spring onion
1/4 of a red onion
5 Hot chillies (red are hotter, and when it comes to normal chilli varieties, the smaller the hotter!)
Cayenne Chilli Powder
White vinegar
Salt & pepper
Bacon bits (or a rasher chopped up)
Preparation & cooking instructions:
Dice/Finely slice the red onion.
Slice as much spring onion as you like.
Slice the hot chillies into 1/2cm bits, keeping the seeds.
Fry the bacon until you get the texture you prefer, soft/crispy.
Mix the tuna with the cayenne pepper powder in a small bowl.
Boil water in a small pan on the stove. What I normally do is measure about 400ml of water into the kettle, boil it in there while I'm preparing the other ingredients, and then pour it into the pan after heating it on the stove for a while. This means you get the water on a rolling boil and are ready to start cooking the ramen straight away. It also means you'll have the perfect amount of soup.
Snap the ramen into halves, I do this by just wrenching the two folded parts apart. Means you'll have less trouble eating it when it comes to that vital part!
Add the sachets (the dried vegetables and spicy soup mix) to the boiling water and stir.
Add a few drops of vinegar (will help with the egg poaching and prevent the noodles from sticking together, I also find it gives the noodles a better texture.)
Add the ramen into the pan.
Next add the sliced red onion.
When the ramen has begun to soften, push down with a wooden spoon to create a little cavity (while the ramen is still bunched together), crack the egg into this cavity. This allows it to sit there on top of the noodles and poach really well. If it slides off, no real dramas, it just means you'll have bits of egg rather than a whole egg.
Add the sliced hot chillies to the pan.
Add the tuna/cayenne pepper powder mix towards the end of the noodles being cooked, you're aiming so that the tuna doesn't have a chance to boil, but just gets some warmth.
Remove the ramen from the pan and pour all of it into a noodle bowl.
Add cheese and bacon on top of the ramen, and then give it a liberal dose of Sriracha.
Dust with salt & pepper, and then sprinkle the sliced spring onion on top.
Chopsticks or fork & a spoon and you're ready to go! Get a glass of milk...you may need it
Optional ingredients:
Hot sauce - I will often add a really hot sauce to it, just for that extra kick (I know in the US it's very easy to get any number of really good hot sauces), personally I use Blair's Jersey Death sauce, which is fucking hot...so only a few drops.
If you want to get all Korean up in the joint, serve with a side of Kim-Chi it goes really well. (The brand I use is probably the tastiest Kimchi I've ever had, feel free to use your own favourite brand.)
Garlic in any form; powder, granules, dried, minced, or freshly sliced. (If it's minced or fresh, you'll want to fry it along with the bacon so you're not in garlic overload mode, unless that's of course what you desire. I'm a big garlic lover, much the behest of any girls I meet.
Fresh vegetables; carrot or broccoli I've tried in the past and they just add a bit more nutrition to the bowl without overcomplicating it.
There you have it, my own personal ramen preparation; if you balance all of the potent ingredients, you'll find it compliments the soup base really well, and the cheese takes a slight edge off the heat. The tuna adds protein, and the chillies will give your metabolism a swift kick in the testicles. Try this recipe + and energy drink then play Starcraft...your APM will double. Fact.
Bon appetit.
<3 Smurg.
*** Update *** Pics by Request:
Tuna/Cayenne mix:
Chopped chillies: My local Asian grocery had run out of the Thai Red chillies, so I substituted for green, not as hot but still with a definite kick!
Ramen Halves:
Ramen cooking with egg poaching on top and chillies abound:
Final result (the egg poached whole, but it is underneath the noodles):
Ready to eat! (w/ Kim Chi and a tall glass of milk.)
Additional sauce used:
This is a sauce I found at a local store. Since I recently moved to the UK I don't have my beloved bottle of Blair's Jersey Death. I found this sauce has a similar taste, and a good kick. Definitely not in the same league as Jersey Death, but a nice addition I found.
man i hate it when there is too much water in the ramen, then the flavor is more dispersed, the noodles get REALLY hot and stay hot for a while, and if you wait for the cooldown the noodles just get soggy, and if you pour out water, then you lose flavor blah blah blah
I love you. Blair's is amazing! I gotta try this recipe sometime, but I like so much Blair's Jersey Death sauce that it triggers my endorphines and I get a free high rofl.
On August 30 2010 11:23 Nal_rAwr wrote: w00t ramen
man i hate it when there is too much water in the ramen, then the flavor is more dispersed, the noodles get REALLY hot and stay hot for a while, and if you wait for the cooldown the noodles just get soggy, and if you pour out water, then you lose flavor blah blah blah
5/5
Yep, really this is just a case of preference - I'm the same - I generally measure out exactly how much soup I want and then go from there.
Generally 400ml is enough (just less than 2 cups) - enough to make the ramen pop out like an iceberg (an awesome iceberg of spicy deliciousness). About 2/5 of the noodles being above the soup, enough surface area to apply dry toppings/sauce without it all floating away/dispersing.
The key is potency of delicious flavours!
On August 30 2010 11:24 ZZangDreamjOy wrote: I love you. Blair's is amazing! I gotta try this recipe sometime, but I like so much Blair's Jersey Death sauce that it triggers my endorphines and I get a free high rofl.
Haha, was more words of warning to the uninitiated. It's quite fun to put some of it on a cracker or something, and then eat it in front of other people who have never seen/tried it, not react to it. Then they are like "Oh can't be that hot."
2 gallons of milk later and they can finally scream "I FUCKING HATE YOU!"
5/5 just because I had everything from your little recipe right here in my kitchen, whipped it up, and went to ramen heaven. Thank you so much ^^ spicy food ftw.
On August 30 2010 15:12 Kenpachi wrote: Sriracha in Ramen. ahh not good for my stomache. Would the ramen be fine without it?
Yes, you can substitute this for a bit of garlic - the Sriracha is meant to be used as little or as much as you like. But if it's bad for your stomach just take that out.
Maybe you can find another tasty sauce to substitute it with?
Everyone seems to want pictures, so I'm going to go and get the ingredients I don't have and take some pictures for you.
Sounds wonderful! I'd love to give it a try but my kitchen is pretty spartan at the moment. I'll keep the recipe in mind though.
On August 30 2010 11:15 Smurg wrote: Available at most Asian grocery stores (ones that want to be considered 'real' Asian grocery stores anyway, if they know what's good for them.
I haven't seen it any of the grocery stores around me. In Asia. I'm sad about this because it's pretty much my lifeblood.
EDIT: Damn son, I'm going to have to make some ramen now. Wasn't going to do it...
On August 30 2010 22:29 thopol wrote: I haven't seen it any of the grocery stores around me. In Asia. I'm sad about this because it's pretty much my lifeblood.
EDIT: Damn son, I'm going to have to make some ramen now. Wasn't going to do it...
I'm surprised there is no Sriracha around...google searches may yield positive results!
This looks really good, however is there any way to make a less spicer but equally awesome ramen or does leaving out some of the chilies and sirracha ruin the dish?
makes my mouth water. spicy is great, ramen is great, spicy ramen is awesome! If I'm not too lazy for once to prepare a more elaborate meal like this.. I'll definitely try it
I had to click on this post... now I'm craving some ramen (don't have any ) I have got to try this sometime - looks awesome. (pics only make the craving worse lol)
i love how you add milk to the meal. it really does help offset the heat in the noodles, it's not as enjoyable when you are sweating/panting for something to drink and then a gosu-hot-pepper-eating-guy looks at you while he's eating it too and says "you don't enjoy it with drink. you have to feel it!"
some people just have different tastes, and i prefer not to feel like im dying when i eat this delicious recipe you have posted for us :D keep on keepin it real!
Smurg, you spend way too much time on instant noodles?
I've found independently that plenty of sriracha sauce with any kind of ramen makes it awesome. I'm so glad I got a bottle during my visit to California this summer.
When I masturbate I fantasize about Sriracha not women. That shit tastes incredible. I can't even stomach traditional hot sauce because of the nasty flavor things it does. Sriracha only adds. It never takes. It's so giving.
Wikipedia says some people call it cocksauce. I was jut calling it roostersauce. I didn't think it could be even more erotic.
Made the quick and dirty version last weekend because I was super hungry and wasn't going to go out for ingredients. I used your kettle trick to get the water going while frying the bacon. I added the onions first to soften them up, followed by the noodles. Near the end I dropped in the soup mix, egg, and tuna, in that order. My noodles were miso, but spicy miso is actually really good. When transferring to the bowl everything got mixed up so it wasn't pretty like yours, but after topping with the sauce, bacon, and Parmesan cheese everything worked out.
My wife looked at it like it was an aberration from the bowls of hell, but it filled me right up into dinner time.
Smurg why does my Ramen never turn out that good . lol. I tried your recipe for the first time but I substituted habaneros for your red peppers. It was amazing, but looked nothing like your ramen.
Anyone here familiar with the korean sesame oil? 참기름 (Cham Gi Leum) and a bunch of sesame seeds cooked into the ramen counterbalances the larger amounts of sriracha sauce I like in my ramen.
On October 23 2010 01:52 Zath.erin wrote: Do you drain the liquid soup base?
I used the exact amount of water I needed to fit into a decent sized bowl, not quite enough to cover all of the noodles. Just drain it depending on how much soup you would like.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it Mani -- I'll have to try it with miso also.
Also glad to hear everyone is enjoying adding new things to noodles.
On October 23 2010 07:17 Woyn wrote: You're in Edinburgh now eh Smurg?? I think any late night sc2 lan should be stocked with the all the ingredients here!
EPT
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