Seriously though, people way over gate-keep cooking. It’s not hard to get into, at all. Just practice, and don’t feel bad about following recipes to a tee. Even once you get better, there’s nothing saying you have to create your own recipes. If you enjoy the process of cooking but not the rest, fuck putting limitations on something as simple as making food and do your own thing
I did this one time just to try cooking the hardboiled egg on my own and it wound up opening my interests to cooking and recipes. Since then I regularly cook and do meal preps / bento boxes :')
I’ve seen this around, but haven’t tried it yet. I’ll give it a shot. A few of my current recommendations are Samyang Buldak Hot Chicken Carbonara (the pink packs), and for a much more dry stir-fry style noodle I LOVE Indomie Mi Goreng noodles. Comes with 5 fucking packets so that aspect is a pain, but it’s well worth it.
I’ll be buying Samyang Buldak Hot Chicken Carbonara and Indomie Mi Goreng noodles, too. MeiMei noodles are more toasted than most noodles. I eat the noodles plain and dry as hiking fare. The noodles themselves are that good. They taste somewhat like potato chips. The leftover spice packets go into Thai dishes,
To others who are reading, I was spoiled after trying the good stuff. I quit buying plain Ramen noodles, since.
I made a reply to another comment in this thread; you might enjoy that one.
You can do so many things with instant ramen to make it better. Of the top of my head, kimchi, tuna, leftover steak, beansprouts, tofu, ricecake, chili powder, a hint of soy sauce, dehydrated onion flakes, garlic powder.
These are all things that will either impart extra flavor into the broth or soak up the flavor of the broth and become extra tasty. Enjoy!
Sorry for the late response. The dumplings go in first, as they will drop the temperature of the water enough to make it boil less consistently. Leave those in for a minute or two.
Next, the noodles and powder. Every other ingredient should go in with respect to the noodle entry time. If you want soft onions and mushrooms, they go in with the noodles. If you want more crunch/snap to the onions or more bite on the mushrooms, put them in a minute late.
I usually use the base of green onion for the broth and use the green portion as a garnish. If you want to copy this, the base goes in with the noodles, chopped in 3/4in (~2cm) lengths. Slice the greens into thin rings or julienne them, and add the greens at the end, after plating.
This always makes instant ramen feel less like a snack and more like a meal to me.
Can confirm. Not only could I not afford to eat the style of food I cooked at work, the last thing that I wanted to do when I got home was put effort into my own food.
If I was eating at work, I’d cobble together some kind of salad out of whatever scraps and nearly expired food I could shove into my face in under 3 minutes. If I was “cooking” for myself at home, about the most complicated thing that I’d make for myself was cereal.
We used to go regularly to this sushi place and had gotten to know the chef pretty well. It was a semi-fancy place with a sushi bar and hibachi section. Really good cuts of sashimi. He said his favorite thing to eat is McDonald’s.
An excuse to add: The Bear Season 2 was one of my favorite seasons of television EVER. If it tickles your fancy even a little, do yourself a favor and watch it.
I paused after the fishes episode and didn’t go back for a good bit. I went back and finished earlier this week and it was well worth it. The last few episodes are awesome
They're a perfect 1-2 punch. One just breaks you down (I did NOT expect that--longest-feeling hour of television I can recall). Followed by the balm of Forks, which you've fucking earned.
This was me, exactly. I had predicted they couldn't do it again, but they really knocked it out of the park. Now, again, I don't see how they keep it going a third time at that level. I would love to be proven wrong again, but how?
Ok so I’ve been wondering how other people do this. I’ve heard so many different takes on how to use dried mushrooms but I have no idea which is the best way. What I’ve been doing is using dried shitake mushrooms, washing and cutting them into small slices, then putting them in a small bowl of water in the fridge to rehydrate for at least 30 minutes, then, after adding the seasoning to the ramen pot, I dump both the mushrooms and the water they were soaked in into the broth. I don’t know how much flavor it adds tho. How have you been doing it? And what mushrooms?
I’m using dried mushrooms that look very similar to shiitake but are not labeled shiitake that I get from a Chinese grocer (they taste similar and are cheaper by weight).
There are two methods I use for two different purposes, though my reasoning for such is fairly arbitrary.
When making stir fry or similar dishes where I want sliced mushrooms, I wash the dried mushrooms, then pour boiling water over them and let them sit for 15 minutes or so or until they are thoroughly soft. Then I’ll squeeze em out and use like fresh. I’ll save the water (now brownish with mushroom… flavor?) for use as veggie broth in any situation.
When making noodle soups, I am far lazier. I will wash the dried mushrooms then place them directly into a pot with about a third more water (tap, room temp, or boiling from the kettle, that’s faster) than I think I need for soup and simply boil them over medium-high heat, covered, for about 10 minutes until they’re plump. This results in seemingly less potent, but still noticeable, mushroom broth. Then I add my other ingredients as is appropriate. I eat these whole as they have a meaty texture I enjoy in my mainly veg soups and I honestly cannot be assed to cut them after they plump up if I’ve already decided to make an easy noodle soup.
For what it’s worth, I’m sure using method one and including the resulting broth in the soup would work just fine, it’s just that I am determined to make my lazy hot pot noodle soup a one-pot affair.
I’ve found some brands of dried mushrooms need trimming or else the stem is too woody and hard, even with soaking. Some brands don’t need this. Your milage will vary and I hope this helps!
You can also add chili flakes, green onions, and thinly sliced meats such as bacon, spam, or chicken. You can also cheaply garnish with nori and sesame seeds. Or just top that shit with a slice of American Cheese. That’s fine too.
Peanut butter is going too far but american fucking cheese is fine? I don’t even wanna know what they put in that shit to make you call want to eat it so much.
Peanut butter is used in noodles and asian cooking plenty and it’s great.
Again, peanut butter is used plenty in noodles and noodle soups and it works great. Each to their own though. Just saying. Abomination is literally exaggering it. Literally learned to use peanut butter with noodles from Asian people.
Interestingly enough, I spent a summer interning in France. I got homesick and was craving peanut butter, looked for it at the store, learned the word - they had no idea what I was talking about. Showed them it written down and a picture and everything
My host family told me you could find it in the international isle, but looked at me weird… They said they only ate it as a high calorie snack when they went skiing
My point is, even though I’m constantly disappointed by even “fancy” wine and cheese a decade later, a spoon full of peanut butter is a fantastic way to shut down hunger pangs for a few hours.
Honestly, it’s better without bread or toast - that’s just empty carbs anyways. I started getting coconut flakes to sprinkle on top… It’s an easy way to class it up without adding calories or effort… It’s basically a no-bake protein cookie at that point
Cook with the white part, finish with the green. Quantity is subjective, put as much as looks appealing. I put probably 2-3 tbsp.
More, thinner cuts = stronger taste. If you just want that bright pop of green in a dish, use longer cuts like 1+" long. Check out how they do it with stirfries.
Also. NEVER EVER EVER, throw away the bulb at the end. Put it in dirt, and you’ll grow massive bunches of green onion. After like 10-20 bulbs, I just get year round massive stalks of green onion - it’s fantastic and comes back every year.
Can you tell me more about growing onions from the bulbs? I usually cut mine fairly close to the root growth at the bottom, maybe leaving 1 cm of onion white, and throw it in the freezer with other veggie scraps to later boil and clarify for broth, but I am CONSTANTLY buying green onions for soups, dumplings, stirfries, grilling, what-have-you, so I’m very interested in this idea. I live in apartment with a bay window which is ripe for a planter, so this sounds potentially very useful.
It’d be perfect in a planter. You can shove a bunch in there about an 1" or 2" apart. They will get MASSIVE. Like 3x bigger in diameter (not leek big, but still). I probably have about 10-20 bulbs going, and just keep cutting until I have enough for whatever dish I need. I never run out… It takes a short bit for them to get established, but it was one of the best things I’ve done in awhile. I never have to buy them any more…been going that way for almost 3 years now.
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