The Ramen Lover's Thread!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yes, Ramen… the chock-full-of-sodium delight that is the sustenance for millions of college students. I welcome tips, tricks, recipes, odes, songs, haiku, anything relating your love of Ramen!!

Some tips I’ve picked up:
Ramen is best if the “seasoning packet” is added with the noodles to the boiling water… the flavor kinda sinks into the noodles

A tasty addition is a tiny bit of cheddar cheese shredded over the top of the bowl just before serving.

So is sliced bologna.

I’m really hungry.

::heads to kitchenette::

2

I eat a lot of ramen at the AM/PM store, since it’s fast.
But that’s exactly why I never thought to add anything.
I have this hunch adding things to fast food is not a major guy thing. Just a hunch.

3

Remember, roasted sesame chili oil and green onions are your best friends.

4

I’ve heard mushrooms (fungus, not that “other” kind) are an excellent addition as well… I guess you just boil them before the noodles… sounds ok…

5

Boil the noodles in the soup.
Into your bowl add a quarter size dollop of sesame oil, a shot of soya sauce and some Yeo’s Sweet Chillie Sauce [my personal favorite]. Also into the bowl add a handfull of beansprouts.

Right before the noodles are cooked you throw in a couple of thinly sliced fresh mushrooms.

Also, at this point you can add any kind of leftovers. I’ve used, thinly sliced, roast beef, ham, chicken (even the Colonel, just pluck it off the bones).

Drain the noodles, directly, and pile them onto the beansprouts.

You can have them as soup or drier by not adding as much soup. I like mine with only a couple of tablespoons of soup!

Now you can add, some green onions or fresh parsley or, my favorite, fresh coriander.

Get out your chopsticks and set about mixing the whole lot up, just like you’ve seen a million Asians doing before they chow down.

I am completely addicted to this meal. There are clearly a million variations. Maybe that’s why I never tire of it.

I also like that it’s really easy to make and way fast when you’re way hungry. And clean up is a snap. It doesn’t hurt that you can throw in anything in the fridge.

The only thing I don’t like is I can’t seem to handle these noodles without spilling some onto the floor. You know, the small dry hard bits. I’m sure mice love them! But, I swear, there is no way to open the things without some spilling out.
I never break them up, always cook them intact and long like spaghetti.

Hey, now I’m getting hungry!

6

I eat ramen noodles on a daily basis–out of a stirofoam cup, heated up in a microwave. Gotta be Maruchan Instant Lunch brand chicken flavor. 80% of all the vegetables I eat come from it.

7

You guys make me cry!!! Looking at all of your posts, it sounds like you are all talking about INSTANT RAMEN!!! YUCK!!!

There is nothing like a bowl of fresh ramen, made with non-instant soup stock and swimming with hand-kneaded noodles. If you don’t believe me, go to a Japanese diner and try one yourself. If you can’t get to one nearby, go and rent yourself a copy of Tampopo at your local independent video store.

Let’s put it this way: Likening instant rahmen to a “good meal” is like me preferring Tony’s frozen supermarket pizza to Lou Malnati’s Chicago-style pizza.

8

Darn! Baglady got here before me. I second everything she said, especially the part about Tampopo. It’s a must see!

I used to hate ramen when I was a kid. The reason why? I only knew the instant stuff. Since coming to Japan, I’ve learned better.

9

Instant rules. I don’t know what “fresh Ramen” is, but I’m sure it doesn’t cost 5/$1.

I went to the supermarket last night and there are so many new flavors! I am so completely jealous of those who are in college right now (KHespos, my little sister included). You can’t fully appreciate Ramen Pride until you spend your last two dollars on Monday to buy Ramen that will feed you until Friday.

Here’s my big philosophical question of the day… Why can’t we end world hunger with Ramen noodles? A brick of Ramen:

  1. Costs next to nothing
  2. Is very portable and nearly unbreakable
  3. Is easy to prepare
  4. Comes in a variety of flavors and is very yummy

This is my plan:

  • We need to build a worldwide infrastructure that allows us to distribute Ramen noodles anywhere in the world in a fairly quick manner. Something like FedEx, but only for Ramen.

  • We must add to our Ramen production facilities so that we might feed the world.

  • The U.S. Government must be made to cooperate.

Assumptions:

  • Ramen costs 10 cents/brick to make. This is generous. I’ve seen them sell 10/$1 in stores when I was in college, which was only 6 years ago.

  • There are 828 million undernourished people in the world, according to worldhunger.org. Liberals always pad the figures, so let’s assume this is a generous assumption, too.

  • These people need to be fed every day. That’s generous, too. Even if you’re in some weird underdeveloped nation, you have to be able to find at least something to eat at least one day out of the freaking year on your own, for chrissake.

  • You would never pay more for shipping something than the actual cost of goods (unless you are some sort of insane e-commerce business).

Calculations:

The cost of producing all of this Ramen is $30.222 billion per year. Throw in another $30 billion or so for shipping. $219 for every man, woman and child in America. It would be a lot less, though, because we could get other governments to chip in.

Everybody loves America again, because no one’s hungry. No more burning U.S. flags, because the U.S. put together the program that ended world hunger.

Risks:

  • There are probably more efficient ways to do this.

  • It’s flagrant socialism.

  • Living on Ramen noodles would give everybody a freaking heart attack.

  • We’d never get the Russians to cooperate. They’d stall it by suggesting that we use microwave burritos instead, or something.

  • Corruption and the political nonsense surrounding government contracting would artificially inflate the cost of buying up all the Ramen. Palm-greasing might make this prohibitively expensive.

Well, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Unca Cecil, help me out here.

10

THespos: Will you marry me? Anyone who puts this much thought into ramen is a keeper. :smiley:

Baglady and Teach: If you can find me a place on the South Side of Chicago that serves fresh Ramen, I will be more than happy to try it. :slight_smile:

elbows: I printed that recipe out… it’s now hanging on my wall… right next to THespos’ Ramen Manifesto.

11

I haven’t had any Ramen noodles in while but reading this thread has me craving it…BAD! I have heard that adding a little bit of chopped spinich is really good. Adding mushrooms sounds good too. Definately going to have to pick some up at the grocery store tonight.

12

I am very disappointed in you, Tigg, for not naming this thread “Everybody Loves Ramen.”

13

Hm. I had NO idea there WAS such a thing as “fresh” ramen. I’ll have to find some in my area.

Anyway, the way I eat ramen is to boil as usual, dump out at least half the water, add the seasoning and then load it up with crushed saltines until all the liquid is soaked up and it is a heap of mush. Mmmmm…ramen heaven.

And I agree…“Everybody Loves Ramen” would have been a great name!

14

Wow. I’ve been proposed to. That’s pretty cool.

I’m gonna go mull over tiggeril’s proposal over a nice cup of Ramen Pride. I think I’ll go for the kind that has hot sauce included in it. (You guys try that stuff yet?)

It also occurred to me that Ramen might have some industrial applications. Before cooking, it’s relatively lightweight, it’s hard as a rock, and it can soak up moisture. What sort of applications can the Teeming Millions come up with for this kind of stuff?

15

Just for the record, a few months ago we had a thread on favorite people’s Ramen Preparation Method (in which, if you read almost to the end, you can see my compulsive method of breaking the noodles so they are about the right size).

My favorite way to make them is to get some roast pork from the Chinese restaurant across the street, start boiling up pork flavored noodles, put in the flavor packet about a minute after the noodles go in, adding a dollop of sesame oil, and putting the roast pork in about a minute before the noodles are done. I sometimes add Hoisin sauce or Chinese mustard. Sometimes I will make it with pastrami, or any leftover meat I have laying around the house. It’s a feast.

By the way, unless forced by circumstances, I will only buy beef or pork flavored Ramen noodles.

Anyway, count me in on the list of Ramen lovers.

Bill

::: goes off to make some Ramen noodles for lunch :::

16

In my defense, I did start this thread after slogging through 3.5 hours of calculus… I’m afraid my usual sparkling wit was a bit dimmed… so nyaahh! :wink:

Billdo: That recipe might actually cause me to try the Chinese takeout place that is closest to my dorm… mmmm…

THespos: Oceanic oil spills, perhaps?

17

For what seemed like months this year, I lived off ramen from my local Asian grocery store. Some observations:

  1. There’s a Vietnamese version made with rice noodles that offers a nice change of pace to the regular kind.

  2. The Indonesian versions include packets of chili powder! Yeah! (The chili powder is helpfully labelled “Bumbu Sauce.”)

  3. If there’s a cartoon character on the outside of a packet, the contents inside will be awful.

  4. Some of the “authentic” Japanese packets contain a packet of fermented yuck, the taste of which will stay with you for days.

  5. After several days in a row of ramen, eat something else for pete’s sake. Something to clean the salt out of your bloodstream.

  6. After several weeks in a row of ramen, everything else tastes wonderful.

18

You’ve never tasted the slop they serve here… let’s just say that Pepto-Bismol is passed around the table after meals… and this is coming from the person who can eat habanero sauce by the spoonful with no ill effects.

19

The best instant is Sapporo Ichiban original flavour. Just had some last night, in fact.

The worst is Mr. Noodle.

20

I often put stuff in them like canned vegetables. I tried half a can of chick peas with the liquid included and they were delicious. I’ll try it again… like right now! :slight_smile: