Raving Ramen
I wanted to share some experimentation of trying to find a healthier homemade way to make one of my favorite comfort foods: ramen! Ramen and I go way back, like way back and it came to the point that I realized that I needed to stop eating the pre-packaged stuff. I would eat either American or Korean kinds of ramen but both have some pretty negative health effects. For one thing most Korean ramen has MSG in it which is not only bad for your health but it makes it more addictive to the eater. The chemical processes that the factory has to use to make the noodles cook faster and last in its dry state before cooking also is bad for you. I learned this from my family so don't quote us on the details. But for myself, the biggest thing for me was the amount of calories each package had. I started to gain weight and not care because I liked the taste so much. But I also felt more groggy and less energized after eating it. I wanted to start feeling better physically and one way is to put healthier food in you.
But I didn't want to give up eating ramen because now it has become part of my food palate. So I started experimenting with my own ramen when I saw this healthier noodle from Costco. It's organic, gluten free, and vegan but it is also made from millet and brown rice. I've been trying to eat healthier and the biggest help for me was eating less white grain products like rice and bread. It cooks pretty fast which is just an added bonus. I'm not really sure if the noodles goes through the same chemical processes (I hope not as much because the company made the product organic so I'm hoping they are more health conscious?) but I knew the health benefits would at least be a lot better.
The package of noodles didn't come with a recipe and usually I follow one but I decided to just experiment with it. I've perfected the pre-packaged stuff after years of experimenting and I figured it was worth a shot to at least try. By the way this recipe was mostly a pot recipe (excepting of the egg boiling) which is an added bonus because it requires less cleaning later!
So I started with the eggs.Usually when I eat ramen, I just scrambled them and place them in the boiling water. Again this was when I used to eat the instant stuff and having the egg quickly boil in the water saved a lot of time. This time, I decided to boil them first. It would be the same nutritional value just take less away from the broth and more to the texture. While that was boiling, I started prepping the veggies.
My go-to veggie for ramen is celery after my grandmother showed me ten years ago. I've been using celery since but not really tried anything else. So I busted out what I had in my fridge and added a little of everything. I cleaned all the vegetables and started cutting them. I had carrots, celery, zucchini, mushrooms, and green onion. Also make sure you prep garlic and/or ginger because it really makes the flavors pop. I think the best part of the ramen was the crisp taste of the uncooked green onion! But I'll get to that later. After cutting (grated the carrots), I started the heat on a big pot.
After it was heated, I added sesame oil. Sesame oil can be found in your local grocery store (not really Walmart because it's more specialized) but it's pretty expensive. Actually I was really surprised at how expensive it could get but I think it was because it's not a commonly used ingredient in America. My family gets ours from the Korean market because it's used quite often in our cuisine so I recommend getting it from an Asian market of some kind. It will be a lot cheaper and probably better. Since I was using the same pot, this small detail was very important. Sesame oil can be used for anything but it really brings out an Asian dish's (like your favorite Chinese dish) flavors out so I (and many recipes) highly recommend it.
First start with the garlic and/or ginger. Make sure it cooks until it smells fragrant. Then add the vegetables and cook it through. If you want to use zucchini, I would recommend not adding the it until later because it became too soft for me by the time we reached the end. I let the vegetables cook through and then I added the broth. What I had at hand was a beef broth but you can obviously use whatever broth you prefer. Let the broth come to a boil and then add the noodles. This is important because the boil will again die down when the noodles touch and it will increase your cook time which is important because the vegetables will start to get too soft. Afterwards, you just need to wait until the noodles start to break apart and throughly cooked through. I was not familiar with this type of noodle so it was hard for me to tell when it was done because it was more chewy than most ramen noodles. But the package said it would only take a few minutes so I followed its instructions.
After a half an hour, your eggs should be done cooking. It was done before I was done with the rest of the ramen because the prep work took awhile but I set it aside to cool down and then later peeled them. Just cut it in half and I placed it on top of the ramen when it was done.
The extra toppings really make a ramen taste even better. I added the chopped green onions in addition to the eggs. But on one occasion I tried cut up dry seaweed (what sushi is wrapped with) which was also pretty good. I also think I will try to replace the zucchini with fresh cucumbers. My family uses this for their noodle dishes and it acts as a palate cleanser for your meal.
It was pretty easy all considering. It would take longer than a regular recipe but it of course took longer than instant ramen. My biggest problem with it was that there was not as much spice or flavor to it. So I tried it with kimchi and sriracha and it both helped a little. I'm working on bettering the flavors from the broth and I plan on experimenting with some Korean peppers in the future.
I tried it two more times afterwards and did some variations. I have to admit, its not close to my high expectations of its flavor but I'm working on it. I also tried it with chicken and ground beef and both was pretty good. I just changed the broth to chicken when I had chopped chicken in it. The one I tried with ground beef was in the form of meatballs and I followed a plated recipe for that. If you don't know what plated is, stay tuned because I will certainly dedicate another post about it.
It was a fun adventure to experiment with one of my favorite comfort foods and I am currently certainly enjoying the health benefits for sure. I hope you try new ways to cook your favorite dish and maybe hopefully make a new family recipe.
But I didn't want to give up eating ramen because now it has become part of my food palate. So I started experimenting with my own ramen when I saw this healthier noodle from Costco. It's organic, gluten free, and vegan but it is also made from millet and brown rice. I've been trying to eat healthier and the biggest help for me was eating less white grain products like rice and bread. It cooks pretty fast which is just an added bonus. I'm not really sure if the noodles goes through the same chemical processes (I hope not as much because the company made the product organic so I'm hoping they are more health conscious?) but I knew the health benefits would at least be a lot better.
The package of noodles didn't come with a recipe and usually I follow one but I decided to just experiment with it. I've perfected the pre-packaged stuff after years of experimenting and I figured it was worth a shot to at least try. By the way this recipe was mostly a pot recipe (excepting of the egg boiling) which is an added bonus because it requires less cleaning later!
So I started with the eggs.Usually when I eat ramen, I just scrambled them and place them in the boiling water. Again this was when I used to eat the instant stuff and having the egg quickly boil in the water saved a lot of time. This time, I decided to boil them first. It would be the same nutritional value just take less away from the broth and more to the texture. While that was boiling, I started prepping the veggies.
First start with the garlic and/or ginger. Make sure it cooks until it smells fragrant. Then add the vegetables and cook it through. If you want to use zucchini, I would recommend not adding the it until later because it became too soft for me by the time we reached the end. I let the vegetables cook through and then I added the broth. What I had at hand was a beef broth but you can obviously use whatever broth you prefer. Let the broth come to a boil and then add the noodles. This is important because the boil will again die down when the noodles touch and it will increase your cook time which is important because the vegetables will start to get too soft. Afterwards, you just need to wait until the noodles start to break apart and throughly cooked through. I was not familiar with this type of noodle so it was hard for me to tell when it was done because it was more chewy than most ramen noodles. But the package said it would only take a few minutes so I followed its instructions. 
The extra toppings really make a ramen taste even better. I added the chopped green onions in addition to the eggs. But on one occasion I tried cut up dry seaweed (what sushi is wrapped with) which was also pretty good. I also think I will try to replace the zucchini with fresh cucumbers. My family uses this for their noodle dishes and it acts as a palate cleanser for your meal.
It was pretty easy all considering. It would take longer than a regular recipe but it of course took longer than instant ramen. My biggest problem with it was that there was not as much spice or flavor to it. So I tried it with kimchi and sriracha and it both helped a little. I'm working on bettering the flavors from the broth and I plan on experimenting with some Korean peppers in the future.
I tried it two more times afterwards and did some variations. I have to admit, its not close to my high expectations of its flavor but I'm working on it. I also tried it with chicken and ground beef and both was pretty good. I just changed the broth to chicken when I had chopped chicken in it. The one I tried with ground beef was in the form of meatballs and I followed a plated recipe for that. If you don't know what plated is, stay tuned because I will certainly dedicate another post about it.
It was a fun adventure to experiment with one of my favorite comfort foods and I am currently certainly enjoying the health benefits for sure. I hope you try new ways to cook your favorite dish and maybe hopefully make a new family recipe.
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