Ramenize Your Noodles
I ramenized my noodles, though I only attempted this after I botched making a huge batch of fresh ramen noodles. Those are four cups of flour I’m never getting back.
So I found Not Quite Nigella’s ramen noodle recipe and decided I would make a simple noodle soup with it. Starting with a veggie broth base, a sautéed some onion and garlic and added 3 cups of the broth and a tablespoon of soy sauce. I threw in some carrots, snow peas, and broccoli. I baked tofu with a little oil and salt. And then I set all of that aside to focus on the noodles.
Oh my G-d.
The noodles.
So I made the dough earlier in the day. It was fine. Quick and painless. Then I went to roll out the dough. I set up my hand crank pasta machine and rolled out a quarter of the dough into a sheet. So far, so good. Then I dusted it liberally with flour and tried to cut it with the angel hair attachment. Huge disaster. Even with the extra flour, the dough was sticky. Ripping apart the threads would end up taking an hour. An hour for noodles that really didn’t seem worth it. So I abandoned NQN’s recipe.
But I didn’t have noodles for my noodle soup, so I decided to try something else I had bookmarked: ramenizing regular noodles. I boiled 4 liters of water in a stock pot. When it came to a rolling boil, I added 8 tsp of baking soda that I had measured into a little dish. I then added a box of thin spaghetti and cooked according to the instructions on the box.
A word of caution: the liquid bubbles and fizzes, and the white foam grows to the top of the pot quickly. Don’t walk away from the pasta for a moment or you’ll end up with a big mess. I kept stirring for the 7 minutes, adjusting the heat.
I drained the pasta, gave it a quick rinse, and tried a bite.
Did it taste like normal thin spaghetti: no.
Did it taste like ramen: um… no.
But did it somehow taste like noodles that belonged in soup? Yes. They sort of felt like they were destined for soup. So I curled up a nest of noodles in each bowl, dropped some tofu on top, and ladled the soup with vegetables. It worked in the sense that everyone ate seconds. I’d probably try this again in the future with another noodle soup creation.
Adventures in ramening.
Totally off-topic: this is your weekly write-your-Microblog-Monday-post-for-tomorrow reminder.
5 comments
Way to stay with it to wind up with a product that was pleasing to everyon’es palate.
Oh, now I just want ramen! I’d never heard of trying to ramenize noodles, but that’s really helpful information for times when we don’t have ramen noodles at home.
I love noodle soups. Comes with spending too much time in South East Asia, where they do amazing noodle soups. Coriander and lemon grass and lime juice. I always have some rice stick noodles at home for a noodle soup – though I do like the egg noodles (more like ramen I think?) too. Much easier than trying to make ramen noodles though. Mmmmmmm. You’re making me hungry.
I’m just now getting caught up on last weeks blogs. But I saw this title in my reader then the next day one of my IG friends posted he and his girlfriend in a ramen noodle making class. Is this a thing? I’ve never heard of it, but twice in a week? I wonder.
I shun ramen noodles because I think only of the stuff I ate when I couldn’t afford actual food. I didn’t actually realize that the stuff in a 39 cent packet was based on something people once made at home.
(You make actual noodles at home??)
But this? This makes my mouth water.