1 week Ago By [email protected] (Jay Wilson)
You know how icebergs look small on the surface, but underneath they're huge masses which have been developing for years? That's kinda how we feel about ramen. Bear with us — we'll explain. Ramen is one of those dishes that looks simple and unassuming, but getting it right takes a huge amount of time and skill.
A bowl of ramen relies on perfect harmony between the broth, noodles, and toppings, and getting one of these elements even slightly wrong can result in a seriously disappointing meal that doesn't hit the spot. Unfortunately, ramen mistakes are very common, particularly for folks who aren't aware how much work goes into each bowl. The most frustrating part is that so many of these mistakes are easily fixed.
The majority of ramen mistakes come down to a lack of thinking things through. After all, ramen doesn't take loads of fancy cooking skills, but what it does require is a clear head and an understanding of how each ingredient affects the other. That's why simple things that everyone does, like cooking your noodles directly in the broth or adding certain ingredients too early, can have a knock-on effect that ultimately ruins your meal.
It's not just gourmet ramen bowls that are riddled with mistakes, either: A lot of folks can also get basic instant ramen wrong without realizing it. It's time to put a stop to these errors. 1.
Overcooking your noodles Whether you're making regular ramen or the instant kind, your noodles are gonna cook pretty quickly. Most noodle nests will cook in just a few minutes, and if you're using fresh ramen noodles they may be ready even more quickly than that. That's why it's so important to keep an eye on your noodles as they cook, as each second is crucial — and leaving them in your water for just a few seconds too long will overcook them, turning them soggy and soft.
This is an issue because your ramen noodles will continue to cook once they're plunged into your piping hot broth. If you overcook them to begin with, they'll retain none of their elasticity, and as you work your way through the soup they'll continue to soften, eventually becoming pulp. You therefore need to avoid overcooking your ramen noodles by pulling them out just before they're done.
As with pasta, aiming for an al dente texture for your noodles will allow them to retain their snap and bounce when they're combined with the broth. Try removing your ramen noodles from the water about a minute earlier than the recommended cooking time, and giving them a taste test: They should have a slight bite to them. 2.
Not matching the broth with the toppings Broth is one of the most important parts of ramen, and yet so many people fail to consider that it's not one-size-fits-all. Ramen comes in many different varieties and each variety uses a slightly different type of broth, with distinct flavor bases in each one that changes the dish considerably. Shoyu ramen, for example, uses soy sauce as the base of its broth, whereas tonkotsu ramen starts its broth with pork bones.
Miso ramen (as you might expect) uses the intense, umami-rich flavors of miso as a starting point, while kare ramen uses a curry-infused broth that adds layers of spice and depth. Therefore, if you opt for the wrong broth for your recipe, you may end up with a messy-tasting ramen that's ultimately pretty inauthentic. It's important to remember that certain toppings may not mesh well with certain types of broth, and there are a lot of traditional pairings that align with regional tastes.
Sapporo-style miso ramen, for instance, is typically topped with sweetcorn and butter, which would be slightly out of place in other ramen styles. If you ignore your recipe's advice and go rogue, you might suffer the consequences — so it's best to stick to those tried-and-tested combos. Having said all that, certain toppings work well with pretty much any broth.
You can't go wrong with a soft-boiled egg. 3. Cooking your noodles directly in the broth Hands up if you've ever made noodle soup by cooking said noodles right in the broth.
Yep, that's right: We've all done it. When it comes to ramen, though, you should really avoid the temptation to dump your carbs in that flavorful liquid, and cook your noodles separately. When noodles cook, they release starch into the liquid they're being cooked in, which both makes it cloudy and slightly heavier-tasting.
You want your broth to have a clean taste that's unencumbered by unnecessary elements, and excess starch will undo all the hard work you've put into it. If you're using freshly-made ramen noodles, your broth may also end up with excess flour inside it, which can thicken it more than you'd like. Cooking your noodles in the broth also makes it harder to control their ultimate consistency.
If you cook them in a separate pot of water, you don't have to worry about anything else in the pot, and you can drain them off and keep them to one side until the rest of your ingredients are done. That being said, you don't want to keep them out for too long: Aim for your noodles to be cooked at the same time as everything else, so you can combine things and enjoy your bowl instantly. 4.
Adding too many toppings Okay, look, we get it. Ramen is all about the toppings, and for a lot of people, the more the merrier. However, the thing about this dish is that while it should be filling and substantial, it should rarely be overwhelming — and adding too many toppings can just turn things into a mess.
A good bowl of ramen is all about balance, and piling on every topping under the sun throws things off, turning your elegant bowl into a mountainous affair that's hard to get through. Plus, it stops your toppings from adequately being moistened by the broth itself, making the experience of eating ramen weirdly dry. Instead, it's best to think small with your toppings.
Add a small amount of everything, aiming for a few slices of your chosen meat, a small scattering of green onions or sesame seeds, and a modestly-sized sheet of nori. If you think that your bowl looks a little meager once you've put it all together, you can always add more — but it's hard to take those toppings away once they've hit the broth. 5.
Using the wrong type of noodles A noodle is a noodle, right? Not quite. Ramen noodles may look similar to other types of noodles, but they're made with a specific recipe that makes them supremely well-suited to being served with broth. Wheat-based ramen noodles are made with just a few ingredients, but one key element is kansui.
This ingredient, which generally comes in powdered form, is made of a combination of potassium and sodium carbonates. It's the kansui in the noodles that gives them their springy, yet firm consistency. That consistency is, of course, key when it comes to ramen.
You want your noodles to hold their own in the broth and not fall apart too readily, remaining chewy even when covered in liquid. Other noodles which don't have this combination of carbonates can turn to mush more quickly — and more importantly, they don't deliver that bouncy quality that we associate with this soup. Of course, you're totally at liberty to use other noodles if you want to, but in strict terms you can't really call your dish ramen if you're doing so.
It'll just be plain old noodle soup. 6. Only using your seasoning packet for flavor Anyone who's made instant ramen will know how punchy those seasoning packets can be.
However, that punchiness can often comes hand-in-hand with a wild amount of sodium. The high salt content of instant ramen seasoning packets can also make them taste a little one-note sometimes, removing any subtlety from the dish. The key is not to rely on your seasoning packet alone for flavor, and find ways to jazz up your instant ramen that don't contribute to its already-high sodium content.
A dash of chili oil can elevate your ramen hugely , while other additions like sesame oil or sesame seeds or sliced green onions can give it a quick and easy flavor boost. Clever additions like minced ginger or garlic can add immediate intensity, while a handful of chopped coriander can give a delightful pepperiness to spicier ramen options. You can also add in ingredients that contain sodium which will give your ramen a different layer of flavor, like umami-rich soy sauce or miso paste.
If you're doing this, though, you might want to leave out a little bit of your seasoning packet to balance out the sodium content. 7. Forgetting to clean the bones for your broth Several types of ramen broth, like shoyu and tonkotsu, begin with bones.
These bones infuse your broth with an extraordinary amount of flavor and give it a deeply savory note that makes the dish taste so rich. However, if you don't clean your bones, you'll never achieve the perfect ramen broth . By cleaning your bones you remove any of the impurities that linger on them, which can lead to a scummy, cloudy consistency.
These impurities can also affect the flavor of your broth, giving it unpleasant layers you'd rather avoid. Cleaning your bones isn't as simple as just wiping them down with a cloth, though: You have to slightly cook them first. "The trick is to first boil the bones you're using — chicken, beef, pork, seafood, whatever — for about five-10 minutes," says chef Markee Manaloto.
"Then strain out the bones and clean them along with the pot, removing all the impurities." While this will remove many of the potential contaminants on your bones, you may still need to keep an eye on your broth as it's cooking, as remnants can remain which may cause scum buildup. If there is any, simply skim it off the surface.
8. Rushing your ramen broth Good ramen broth takes time — a lot of time. While it's tempting to assume that you can whip up ramen broth in a few minutes, the key to making it as delicious as it can be is to cook it for as long as you can, at a surprisingly high temperature.
Chef Markee Manaloto recommends that to make the perfect broth , you cook it "for a long, long time at high heat." Manaloto points out that "this pulls out all the fat, collagen and other goodness from the bones and emulsifies it into the broth, creating a super-rich and creamy end product that you usually only find in restaurants." So, how long are we talking here? Pretty much the whole day.
Some broths, like tonkotsu, should be cooked for about 12 hours. This sounds like a long time, but it's necessary to extract the full flavor from the bones. The good news, though, is that you can make this amount of time worth your while by preparing a load of broth and then freezing some for future use.
That way, you won't have to set aside hours every time you want a ramen fix. 9. Adding your ingredients to your broth too early Because ramen broth takes so long to develop, it's only natural that you'd want to speed things up at the very end of your cooking process.
You're probably getting pretty hungry, huh? Well, we're afraid that you'll have to hold off on the temptation to throw your ingredients in too early. One of the main reasons that ramen tastes amazing in restaurants is that the chefs who make it understand exactly when each of their many ingredients should go into the broth. Some of them should only be placed in once the ramen is fully dished up, whereas others should be popped in at the last minute so that they can come up to temperature.
However, throwing your ingredients in when you still have part of the cooking to complete can lead to disaster. If you add your ingredients too early, they can quickly become overcooked, ruining all of the hard work you put into your broth in the first place. They can also release flavors into your soup which can muddy its flavor.
Remember that with ramen, a lot of things happen at the very last minute; don't try and beat the system. 10. Forgetting that you can make 'dry' ramen Ramen is wet — at least, that's what we've been led to believe.
However, this timeless noodle soup can be prepared without any soup in sight. "Dry" ramen may not sound particularly appetizing, but it's basically a form of the noodle dish which either serves the soup on the side or treats its ingredients and seasonings as more of a light coating. This ramen style has exploded in popularity with the rise of TikTok ramen , which lightly coats ramen noodles with some basic seasonings like soy sauce and butter before serving them dry.
However, TikTok ramen is kind of just a trendified version of a classic Japanese street dish called yaki ramen, which serves ramen noodles in a yakisoba style. #trendcheck We HAD to try out the viral TikTok Ramen Recipe. It took about 5 minutes— see what we thought.
.. #Ramen #Viral #ViralRecipe #OhMy #RamenRecipe ♬ Love You So – The King Khan & BBQ Show Other types of dry ramen are slightly less conventional, to Western audiences at least.
Tsukemen, for example, is a ramen style which serves the noodles plain in a bowl next to the broth — to eat, you'll pick up a bite of noodles with your chopsticks and bathe them in the broth before popping them into your mouth. Although the noodles are soaked with the soup, they're not quite as moist when you bite into them, and are instead lightly slicked with the flavorful liquid. 11.
Not serving your ramen instantly There are few things worse than a lovingly-prepared meal being left to go cold on the side — and of all the dishes you can do this to, you definitely shouldn't do it to ramen. Ramen is something that absolutely needs to be served piping hot, as soon as the bowl comes together. This is partly common sense, of course (no one wants to slurp down lukewarm or cold noodle soup), but it's also crucial as some ramen styles can lose their heat pretty quickly.
Thinner broths like shoyu or shio can turn from hot to cool in mere minutes, with this happening even more quickly if you're serving it in a wide bowl. However, there's also a key textural reason why you should serve ramen instantly. The longer you leave your ramen, the more quickly the ingredients inside it will begin to turn soggy.
Get it to the table too late, and your guests will find that their noodles are already disintegrating. This is also why you should always keep your ingredients separate if you're planning on using some of your ramen as leftovers; Combine your noodles and the broth when you reheat it, not when you pour it into your Tupperware containers. 12.
Using the water you cook your instant ramen in for your soup Ramen aficionados know that the noodles in the soup shouldn't be cooked in the broth. However, is it any different when it comes to instant ramen? Surely the rules are off with such a quick dish, right? We're afraid not. Although it's tempting to just tip your seasoning packet into the water that you cook your instant noodles in, you should try to avoid doing so wherever possible.
The reason for this is that instant noodles are heavily processed, and are dehydrated by being fried in cheap oil. As such, they absorb a lot of fat, and this fat then releases into your cooking liquid as they simmer away. By draining them and then adding them to fresh liquid for soup, you get rid of a lot of this low-cost oil.
This not only gives your ramen a cleaner, fresher taste, but it also makes them much healthier. When you consider that some instant ramen varieties can contain almost half of your recommended saturated fat intake per day, that's a smart move. 13.
Breaking your noodle nest in half If you've ever snapped your noodle nest in half when making ramen (indeed, when making any type of noodles), you're probably not alone. When you're working with a smaller pot or less water, snapping your noodles can feel like a smart way to help them cook more evenly. Unfortunately, though, it's best avoided when it comes to ramen.
One of the joys of ramen is having those delightfully long noodles in each bowl, that you can scoop up and slurp with abandon. Snap your noodles, and you'll make the experience way less satisfying — and they'll be harder to grab with your chopsticks. Aside from this, snapping noodles really isn't necessary most of the time.
Just make sure you're cooking them in a big enough pot, and with enough water to stop them from poking out. This rule applies whether you're making fresh ramen or the instant kind, by the by. Just keep those nests intact, people! 14.
Forgetting to use ramen noodles in different ways What are ramen noodles used for? They're used for ramen ...
Right? Well, yes, but there are so many other ways you can employ them in the kitchen, and failing to experiment with your ramen noodles will limit the amount of delicious dishes you can make. Instant ramen noodles can shake up your taco night by acting as a crunchy topping or giving your seasoning an extra boost. You can also use ramen noodles to make salads , and trust us when we say that they're surprisingly moreish when paired with shredded veggies.
Ramen noodles don't have to just be used in zany culinary creations, either. In Japan, there's a strong precedent for using them in dishes aside from the soup, with Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki made by piling ramen noodles into a plump, savory, eggy pancake. You can even use ramen noodles as a coating for fried chicken, or eat them dry as a snack.
This food just keeps on giving!.
