Day One of Ramen

My Clean Sink

This morning I cleared all my responsibilities by 930am, and decided to tackle the sink. It took me about an hour of scrubbing, but I got everything clean: the red enamel Dansk pot, the Faberware pot, the wok, the steel mixing bowl, the glass mixing bowl, the cupcake tins, and even the nine sets of silverware that had been soaking since my last dinner party! I never did find the Zen in the warm soapy water, although I am excited to create my next mess.

The Ramen Project

Two weeks ago, I found myself without any approved NetGalley cookbooks to read. I had three requests pending with publishers – one of which had been pending for months – but nothing to work through at the moment. So I picked up Everbody Loves Ramen off the NetGalley “Read Now” list, and devoured that in a few hours. Shortly after I finished the book review, all three pending requests were approved. That batch of approvals included a five-star canning book that I couldn’t wait to recipe test. So that’s why I’m just now getting around to testing the ramen recipes.

How Cheap is a Ramen Recipe?

Just to see how cheap ramen noodle meals were, I went to the grocery store and bought only the ingredients that I needed for three recipes from the book. The list read as follows:

• Broccoli
• Red bell pepper
• Sliced mushrooms
• Chicken sesame ramen
• Chicken mushroom ramen
• 2 packages any flavor ramen
• Rice wine vinegar
• Soy sauce
• 12 ounce package imitation crabmeat
• Package of pre-cooked chicken
• 1 cup light cream
• Frozen peas
• Frozen spinach


Since I had failed to annotate how much broccoli and red bell pepper I needed, I put two crowns of broccoli and two red bell peppers in my shopping basket – just so I wouldn’t run short. It turns out that ramen is no longer sold in the single packages anymore (or at least not in the two supermarkets that I checked) so I compromised and bought a six-pack of roast chicken flavor ramen (as opposed to regular chicken ramen). And of course, imitation crabmeat isn’t sold in 12-ounce packages: the choice was an 8-ounce or a14-ounce package. Because 14 ounces is closer to 12 ounces, I went with that option. Again, I failed to annotate how much frozen peas and frozen spinach, so I bought two blocks of each in order to not run short. (Can you tell that I hate to run short?) And it was just my luck that I had run out of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar the week before! Taking all that into consideration, I knew that the bill was going to be on the higher side. But I was surprised that the total bill was $41.27, even though it included protein and fresh produce. If you do the math, that works out to roughly $6.89 per meal! Not quite Toki Underground prices, but a budget constrained student might be able to do better – in terms of both price and nutrition - by taking out a salad from a fast food restaurant.

I had intended to have three days of ramen noodle meals to test all the recipes at once. After two consecutive ramen meals, I decided that wasn’t a good idea. So I’m going to spread out my ramen meals with “normal” foods, and try not to be too upset about throwing something out because it is not good for me. (Yes, I’m one of those who hates to throw out good food.)

Flaming Poultry and Peanuts - Meal #1

Last night I started my adventure with the ramen recipes. The first recipe I chose was Flaming Poultry and Peanuts, because it looked rather healthy with fresh broccoli, frozen peas, and cubed chicken breast. The recipe says it serves six from two packages of ramen, so I halved the recipe just to serve myself. And of course, I made some adaptations to the ingredients on the fly. Rather than use one garlic clove, I used 1 teaspoon of minced garlic from a jar. Rather than measure out 1½ cups of broccoli florets, I chopped a whole crown. Finally, rather than measure out ½ cup frozen peas, I just used the entire 9-ounce frozen block. Unfortunately, I forgot to add the red bell pepper (but it will get used in something before it goes bad) and completely neglected the garnishing of thinly sliced green onion. And of course, I most definitely opted for including the cup of cubed cooked chicken. Since my roast chicken ramen noodle package didn’t have an “oil seasoning packet,” I had intended to use ½ teaspoon of straight sesame oil. But I had run out of that the week before as well!

The recipe steps were easy enough to follow, but I ran into technical difficulties due to the size of pan I opted to use and that threw me off course. What happened was the pot that I usually use to heat a can of soup was just large enough for the three cups of boiling water, the frozen peas and the broccoli florets. When I went to stir in the reserved peanut sauce, the liquid was almost level with the rim of the pot. There was no way that the ramen noodles would fit! So I boiled the vegetables with the water and reserved peanut sauce for two minutes, then scooped them out into a large mixing bowl, added the ramen noodles, boiled them for two minutes, then dumped everything into the large mixing bowl with the vegetables. I added the cubed chicken to that mess, stirred well, and ladled out a small soup bowl of soup, noodles, and vegetables.

Overall, the broccoli and peas were cooked perfectly at four minutes. If I had followed the recipe and cooked an additional 1½ minutes after adding the chicken, the vegetables would have been mushy. The soup, however, tasted like a watered down Szechwan peanut sauce. I love Szechwan peanut sauce on chicken and on noodles, but a full bowl of a watered down version was too much to handle. I ate all the noodles and the vegetables with some broth in each spoonful, but when I reached the end of all the good stuff, I just couldn’t bring myself to slurp up the broth. It went down the drain instead. I still have at least another serving left in the mixing bowl in the refrigerator, so I may feel differently about it when I try it again tomorrow.

Flaming Poultry and Peanuts - Meal #2

For lunch this afternoon, I pulled out the mixing bowl of stuff from the refrigerator, intending to just ladle some of it into a pot and heat it up. That’s when I discovered that there were almost no noodles left in the mixing bowl because they had all made it into my soup bowl last night. So I hit upon an idea: cook another package of noodles, drain them, and then smother it in the good stuff (broccoli, peas, chicken) from the mixing bowl with a little bit of the soup. That worked out better than last night’s soup, but I still had extra broth at the bottom of the soup bowl that I wasn’t willing to drink.

The Better Option

Like I said, I am a huge fan of a good Szechwan peanut sauce. And it just so happens that I do have a good recipe for it in the family cookbook. So I think there is a better option to messing with stirring the peanut sauce into the soup and cooking everything together in the watered down peanut sauce. I liked the idea of broccoli, peas and chicken with peanut noodles. If you cooked the vegetables for about four minutes in boiling water, and then set them aside in a mixing bowl with the precooked chicken, you’d still have boiling water to cook the noodles (for about three minutes according to the package). Add the cooked noodles to the bowl and smother it in a good peanut sauce. Now THAT would be something that I would serve at one of my dinner parties! Although I would probably use bean threads instead of cheap ramen noodles so that my gluten free guests could enjoy it as well.

The Family Recipe for Szechwan Peanut Sauce

I don’t really remember where this recipe comes from, just that it has been around since my Mansfield parties in the mid-1990s. This sauce is so simple, that I don’t know why anyone would use the store bought stuff. Especially since you can buy gluten free soy sauce to make the entire recipe gluten free. Of course, when Dad was making his version to take to visit my brother’s family for the weekend, he just used this recipe as a guide – he basically made up something by adding a little of this and a little of that until it tasted great!

1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp chili oil
⅓ cup peanut butter
⅓ cup chicken broth

1. In small bowl, mix sugar through peanut butter and stir until smooth.
2. Add broth slowly and stir until smooth. (Alternately, add all ingredients to a small jar with a tight fitting lid and shake really well.)

♥ Alternate method to double the recipe: Use 5 tbsp sesame, 3 tbsp soy and 1 tbsp chili oil. Stick with normal math to double the remainder of the ingredients.

♥ Chicken Satay: Divide the peanut sauce in half. Thin one half with a little extra broth, and use this to marinate thinly sliced chicken or ½” cubes of chicken. Remove the chicken from the marinade, slide onto soaked bamboo skewers and broil or grill over high heat until cooked through. Turn once during cooking and baste continually with leftover marinade. Serve warm with a side of uncontaminated peanut sauce.