Ramen Noodle Soup Recipe

My parents sent a box of Japanese food back in December. One of the items was Ramen -- not Top Ramen or the instant kinds typically found in most American grocery stores. This was closer to the freshly made, authentic ramen noodle soups one would find at ramen restaurants.

Once Shelley tasted a package, all other definitions and incarnations of ramen became rather deficient. She wanted to have some real ramen.

Thus began my quest for trying to see if it could be done here in Petersburg. I first looked up and down both grocery stores to see if there were any pre-packaged, genuine, good ramen. But my search was met with futility. My next stop was Google where I found some English recipe sites. The problem? They all told me to use the regular ramen noodle packages and the enclosed seasoning packet -- the very thing I was trying to improve upon.

I finally went to one recipe page for Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) Ramen. This turned out to be from the English subset side of a larger Japanese recipe web site. I promptly changed over to the Japanese site and switching over my input to Japanese, searched for "ra-menn" (the IME version) and came up with a number of promising leads.

There was one that looked more simple that the others. Most involve creating an original soup base from chicken or pork. I'm not willing to work that much. The recipe I found uses a package of Chinese soup mix, something I consider a great improvement over the pre-packaged ramen seasoning.

Things looked doable, so I went out to purchase some of the grocery items. Alas, the store I went to did not have regular Chinese soup mix. The closest thing I could find was a wonton soup mix. Reading the ingredients list it looked like imitating it was feasible.

Returning home I set to work in preparing the soup. I wasn't too sure if it would turn out sufficiently well on the first try, but I needn't have worried because once I gave the completed soup a try and gave some to Shelley to try, we knew it was a go. I quickly cooked the noodles and some mushrooms (for me, not the children), put all of them together in a bowl, and discovered it was quite excellent. Even Amy, who frequently refuses to even try some Asian cooking, discovered this one was quite acceptable to her palate.

So here is my Peterburg-friendly adaptation of the ramen noodle soup recipe. If you are strict vegetarian or vegan, further adaptations will be required.

Shoyu Ramen Noodle Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. Chinese Egg Noodles
• ¼-½ lb. Chicken, Beef, or Mushrooms (Meat may be ground or chopped into bit-sized portions)
• 2 tbsp. Cooking wine or sake
• 1 tbsp. Cooking oil, if using mushrooms only (no meat)
  

• 2 Green Onions
  

• 6 c. Water
• 6 tbsp. Soy Sauce (or Golden Mountain Sauce, or combination of two)
• 2 tbsp. Ground White Toasted Sesame Seeds
• 4 tbsp. Toasted Sesame Seeds
• 1 ½ tbsp. Powder Chinese Soup Mix
• 1 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
  

• 1 ½ tsp. Asian Chili Oil
• Ground Black Pepper to taste
• Cilantro for garnish

Soup mix substitution

• 1 clove Garlic
• 1/2 tsp. Grated Ginger
• 1 tbsp. Cooking Oil

• 1 pkg. Japanese Dashi
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• Or, substitute 3 c. vegetable broth for the dashi and bouillon
• (You'll also need to reduce the added water to 3 c.)
• 1 tbsp. sesame oil

Cooking Directions:

1. Sauté meat and/or mushrooms with cooking wine or sake until cooked and tender. If using mushrooms only, add cooking oil.
2. Julienne white onions into 2 in. lengths. If using green onions, slice thinly across.
3. Fully cook egg noodles according to package directions.
4. Bring 3 c. water to boil, and then combine soy sauce, ground sesame, toasted sesame, and soup mix (if no soup mix, see below) into the water. Bring back to boil.
5. Divide noodles (3) into serving (ramen) bowls, cover with soup (4), add in chili oil, sprinkle some ground black pepper, then place onions (2) and cilantro atop the noodles.

Directions for Soup Mix Substitution

1. On medium-high, heat cooking oil in pot that you will use to cook the soup.
2. When hot, add crushed garlic and fry for about a minute. Add grated ginger and continue to fry for another minute or so until garlic begins to brown.
3. Pour in the 6 cups of water and bring to boil. (Vegetable broth substitution: Reduce water to 3 c. and add the vegetable broth. Return to step 4 of main directions.)
4. Add dashi package and boil for 3 minutes. Then remove used dashi package.
5. Add the chicken bouillon cubes.
6. Continue with step 4 in main directions.