Yeah, if we’re talking packaged 10-for-a-buck ramen or cup-o-noodles ramen, I’ve never noticed any difference between making it all together in a microwave vs boiling the water separately and adding it to the noodles. I’m not even entirely sure I understand how or why that would make a difference. It doesn’t make a difference in regular pasta, that’s for sure (I usually boil my pasta starting from the pasta in the cold water.) If we’re talking more upscale ramen, then I have no experience with that yet.
This is the best post I’ve seen in a long time.
In fact there were five confirmed cases of BSE in the USA, one of which initiated in Canada, the others were home grown. I believe there were about 20 confirmed in Canada. Also the feeding practices which were believed to cause/spread the disease were discovered to be rampant in the US at the time. We were not hysterical, we were terrified.
If you cook it in the bird, then it’s called “stuffing”. If you cook it anywhere else, then it’s called “dressing”. And while stuffing tastes marginally better than dressing, it will never be worth the risk to me.
The most delicious dressing I’ve ever tried was made with cornbread and oysters. It goes incredibly well with turkey.
Interesting. Perhaps I just missed the peak of Mad Cow craziness here. I was in the UK for about half of '96, and remember it being a Really Big Deal there, so much so that I altered my beef eating patterns a bit, but upon return to the US, it was just Back To Normal for me. Or perhaps I just didn’t notice the local response to it because it seemed so subdued compared with the UK reaction. I know my eating and my family’s eating habits didn’t change one bit, but the numbers don’t lie, and I guess other people must have adapted to the news.
But back to ramen, you can have yourself a real taste treat if you A) bring the water to a boil before adding the noodle block, then B) tossing the flavor packet and dressing the cooked noodles with butter and parmesan and S&P.
actually the “best” way to eat ramen is drain most or all of the water and just stir in the seasoning ……
The most delicious I ever had was prunes soaked in brandy, stuffed with fois gras, and stuffed into a roasting goose. I had the leftovers, and didn’t try it with the goose, but I bet it went well.
I rarely use stuffing, but when I do, I add hot stuffing (hot enough to kill most common bacteria) to the cavity right before I put the bird in the pre-heated oven, and I shove a thermometer into the center of the stuffing, and make sure it hot when the bird comes out of the oven. I don’t think it’s all that dangerous. I don’t do the complicated multi-layer things like turducken that must take forever to cook, though.
I find I need some of that water to dissolve the salt/MSG bomb that ramen noodle packet seasoning is. Even using half the packet with the drained noodles is a bit too intense for me. What I like to do more often than not is buy the ramen to cook in some leftover broth (I make a lot of soups, so I always have some broth I made around). Then pour in a little bit of that flavor packet for “authenticity.” 
That’s quite tasty. Of course, you can then gussy it up with vegetables and stuff like that if you have time, but for a quickie lunch, that’s my favorite way of doing them. Sometimes with a dab of chili oil for spice and extra flavor.