Ramen: Not just for Poor College Students

I believe most everyone who endures the 'poor college student' years has eaten their fair share of ramen noodles. Those incredibly inexpensive meals in a pouch, that have sustained many a student through the day, so that there was enough beer money for the weekends. Yes, those sodium laden nuggets of sustenance are definitely one of the staples in a dorm room pantry. I'd never expected much from ramen from a culinary viewpoint.

And so, when I was in Japan for work, I had a bit of wake up call, so to speak. I was working in a small town about a half hour train ride from downtown Kobe, with a supplier in one of their labs. During the week we'd been eating lunch in their cafeteria, which was always very good in my opinion. A lot better than the breakfast buffet at the hotel I was staying at! Anyway, one of the managers working with us says, "Today you are in for a treat. The cafeteria is serving ramen." Well, I just about split a gut laughing. Okay, to be fair, I think I only let out a snort, and contained most of my amusement. However, I did let out enough that they asked what was up. I explained the whole ramen and poor college student connection, and how most Americans would not ramen to be much of a treat. We all had a good laugh, went up to lunch and ate our delicious ramen noodle soup, and went on with our day.

Fast forward to this weekend. We decided to try to make our own ramen soup, with great aspirations of making the noodles from scratch, as well as the soup stock. While this is definitely doable, we scaled back to purchasing pre-made ramen noodles using canned chicken stock. We went with a chicken ramen instead of pork, and it turned out to be a very delicious meal.

Here is what we did. First we baked several chicken thighs, seasoned with salt, pepper, and soy sauce. When the chicken was cooked, we tore off the meat and roughly chopped it. For the soup stock, I heated up the base chicken broth, and added a fair amount of peeled ginger root. I let that steep for about an hour, then removed the ginger. After that, I added a few tablespoons of soy sauce, and some salt. I also cut up some green onions, and some nori sheets (dried seaweed) to use with the chicken as toppings for the soup.

The ramen noodles got a four minute soak in boiling water, and then were distributed to all the bowls. The chicken, onions, and nori were laid on top of the noodles, and then a few ladles of stock were poured over the top. What you see in the picture was the result.

The results were fantastic! And every single one of the kids enjoyed it (to varying degrees). I guess I had the "umami" going on!