I love ramen. Like… Really love it. In fact, ramen has become the only food that I put in my weekly rotation of what I’m going to eat for lunch. I’ll make a point to plan out my meals for a week, and, without fail, I’ll put ramen into one of my lunch slots. No exceptions.
Now, when I’m talking about ramen, I’m not talking about Japanese ramen. Japanese ramen has a thicker, more savory broth that results in a mellow flavor that coats your tongue in succinct coordination that satisfies the senses. And while I do like Japanese ramen, it has not become my more beloved noodle dish.
No. What I’m here to talk about today is Korean ramen. The beautifully sharp and spicy instant noodle dish that can be made in minutes. Instead of calmly luring the consumer into the dish like Japanese ramen, Korean ramen attacks your taste buds without hesitation. Subduing you into its flavors.
And just so we're double-y clear, I'm talking about SHIN Ramen. Best instant ramen noodle. Don't @ me.
And have I mentioned the noodles? Oh my God. If you cook the noodles properly, you have a perfect al dente noodle with just the right amount of bounce that leaves you wanting more of the addicting texture. Every time I eat them, I end up just wanting to make more noodles, but I restrain myself for fear of an imbalance of noodles and broth flavoring.
Even the smell of ramen is enticing. The iconic smell cutting through the air into my nostrils activated my salvatory glands so fast that my entire mouth filled with saliva. The perfect blend of spices and MSG just calls to me. Begging to be consumed. When I was a restless five-year-old, the only thing that I wanted to do was have a taste of the dish, and my dad gave me a bite so that I would leave him alone.
And the pain was intense. I’m pretty sure that my dad gave me that bite to teach me a lesson about what the word “no” means. This lesson was not learned at this moment.
Needless to say, my curiosity wasn’t quite quelled. I knew that what I was having was good, I just didn’t know how good it was, so I would ask for it incessantly. In the end, my parents put half of the spice packet and ice cubes into the broth of the ramen to quell both the temperature and heat of the noodles.
I mean... How could you not want that. I'm just salivating looking at the photo.
From that moment on, I was addicted. It became my favorite food of all time, and all other foods were compared to the holy pedestal where ramen was placed. Every time I tasted the noodles, I couldn’t believe how much flavor they had in them. Even with only half of the packet, all the flavors were coming out in ways that I couldn’t accurately comprehend at the time.
The first time that I had the whole packet put into my ramen was when I visited my cousins in California when I was eight. We had taken a red-eye flight, so I was exhausted, but my aunt knew that my little brother and I craved something to eat, so she made us a pot of ramen before sending us to bed. Probably not the healthiest thing, but she had heard how much we loved ramen, and we were practically begging for ramen as soon as we got off the plane, so I don’t blame her for giving into two bratty kids' requests.
Even though it was late in the night, the spiciness woke me up in an instant. Tears were streaming down my face as I slurped up my noodles and drank the broth. Regardless of the heat, I was enthralled by the flavors cascading on my tongue.
Honestly, I think it’s a perfect meal. These days, I just add in everything from the packet and crack an egg into the mixture. Just let it sit in the pot and cook for a few minutes. Perfection in a bowl. Literally, everything I could want is in that bowl.
My love is so widely known within my family and friends, that I received ramen plushes, ramen shirts, and a ramen cookbook called…. Prison Ramen, by Clifton Collins Jr. and Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez. A book with 68 variations of ramen and boasts of its ingenuity while using whatever they could get their hands on. Which initially sounds interesting until you realize that one of the recipes is literally just taking a block of raw ramen and slathering it with peanut butter and jelly.
The fated piece of literature...
Every page is filled with all these crazy ways to “enhance” your ramen, and I’ll make it my mission to make every ramen in this book. And I will strive to blog about every single ramen that I make. So, I will let you know exactly which ones are bangers and which ones you should pass.
Just to make this easier for me in the future, let’s go over the general rules:
1. I’m going to make at least one of these ramens a week.
2. I’ll have to write about each one, evaluating both the written component and actual recipe of each ramen.
3. Each ramen will be given a score out of 5. A score of 3 means it is as good as regular ramen.
4. I won’t be specifically giving these recipes out since I think that the recipes are probably copyrighted (?), but I will be talking about the general process.
Just call me the Julie Powell of ramen cause, I’m going to be miserable throughout this whole process. Probably.
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