RAMEN

One of my biggest regrets would be to not taste authentic ramen during my stay in Japan. It wasn't really my fault, to be honest. For someone with such a carefully curated taste buds, it was difficult to try out other cuisines soon after I started living alone. I tried making ramen a number of times. But after I checked out a few videos on Japanese ramen on various occasions, I realized that just boiling a packet of noodles and not straining the water away is not even close to be being ramen, no matter how much I try convincing myself otherwise. I will leave pictures of few of my trials below. Since I am never up for preparing my own broth, I recently ordered chicken bouillon cubes. This gave me a kick to give ramen another try.

I started off by using thin spaghetti as my ramen noodles. So in a pot full of water, I added in the spaghetti and a pinch of salt. While that was cooking, I started preparing my toppings. I wanted to keep it very simple so I started with a boiled egg. In a separate pan, I added in some chopped onions and sliced Serrano peppers and caramelized them. I took them out once they were done, and in the same pan I added in some small white beans and seasoned it with a pinch of salt and red chili powder to give it a spicy kick. Again, after they were done, I took them out and added in the ground beef. Usually, ramen have a topping of sliced beef but I didn't have that so I used ground beef instead. Plus, I had it seasoned, cooked and frozen beforehand, so easier it was! Once all my toppings were ready, I added in water and bouillon cubes for my broth. It was rather easy and didn't require much of a seasoning. Later, I will definitely try few more ingredients for seasoning, to give the broth more flavor. After the prepping session comes the best part, assembling session! So I first poured some generous amount of broth in a bowl and added in the ramen-slash-spaghetti. I then topped it off with the ground beef, white beans, caramelized onion and pepper, hard boiled egg and finally some lettuce. I don't know how authentic ramen tastes but I could definitely tell why cooking a packet of soup noodles isn't ramen. It was wholesome and delicious at the same time. Clearly, I will try this again.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp julienned onion

1 pcs sliced Serrano pepper

2 tbsp ground beef

2 tbsp small white beans

1 pcs hard boiled egg

1 cup thin spaghetti

(for broth)

2 cup water

1 pcs bouillon cube

Few of my previous trials of ramen with poached egg, homemade pickle and ground beef. It wasn't as good as the one above but it was pretty fun and easy to make.