Sunday, June 27, 2010

Ramen Fu Episode 1: Coffee In My Ramen

Posted on 6/27/2010 07:45:00 PM by Frank

     Hey folks, it's been a long time coming but I've finally decided to write about my misadventures in ramen experimentation. Yeah I cook other things but I usually end up using ramen noodles because I just can. This Section is meant for anyone who maybe wants to learn(along with myself) the many different things that are possible with this versatile, and most importantly cheap, every day product the American-Japanese marketing geniuses have provided us.

     So this particular experiment started out with me having some afternoon coffee. Relax, it was decaf and I just felt like having a cup of coffee. Now when I make coffee for myself, I don't feel that there's a point is using the pot. I'd just have to wash it later along with the cup. So I just skip a step and use the cup to brew straight in to. I'm usually good with measuring out exactly a cup plus evaporation but this time I added too much water for whatever reason and I swapped out the cup with another so I would't have a mess. To make a longer than necessary story shorter, I went and sat down to watch TV, finished my cup, and then realized I had my fix and didn't want more coffee. Life. But I was hungry. By the time I fanned away my brain smoke I decided to put it in  dinner!

     All great ideas start somewhere and coffee started this one. And yes, I know it's not that unusual for people to put coffee in food so no flaming, OK?

Coffee In My Ramen
Ingredients:  
1/2 cup coffee(fresh, no creamer or other crap mixed in)
3 cups water
frozen chicken breast fillet
ramen noodles(surprise!)
3/4 cup chenin blanc wine or other somewhat sweet white wine
1 tbsp minced onion - I used the dried stuff
1/2 tsp garlic salt - SALT not powder
2 tbsp lime juice(or 1 tbsp lemon)
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp corn oil
rosemary?? - will explain later
1 sq in parmesan cheese - for lack of better measure


Start out by putting your breast in 3 cups of water(haha. Deuce Bigalow flashback). Add your oil. Set the heat on max and wait till the water boils. This is meant to be a really quick prep so I didn't bother thawing.



Add your coffee and ramen noodles. Wait for the noodles to get re-hydrated.






Add everything else except the cheese and rosemary and turn down to med-high heat.
etc. etc.. look at ingredients list.

At this point I figured that I didn't want to be biting chunks out of the chicken while I was eating to I took it out and sliced it up. Plop the pieces back in right away, it's not cooked through yet.

Let the liquid cook off until things get a little thickened. The wine, lime juice, and even the soy sauce have sugar in them which acts as a thickener.
Now here's where it got interesting. Up to this point I still didn't know what kind of flavor I was looking for. All I knew was that I added too much lime juice and it overtook the other flavors. In my scramble for something to tone that down I went out back and cut 2 8in sprigs of rosemary. I added it hesitantly because now I'd be locking into an herbal/Itallian/Mediterranean flavor but I thought, eh, what the heck.

At this point the mix is pretty thick. Now is the time to add the cheese to make it even thicker. Again, easy prep - no grating for me. Notice block of cheese in center ---->>>

Let that melt until only about 1/4 of the block is gone then turn off the heat. Fold everything around constantly to make sure you get that cheese spread evenly.

And that's all there is to it. 15 minutes and throwing things in a pan(I used a wok)! 

***NOTE: I had 2 different plates - one that I used to cut the chicken and the serving plate. DON'T USE THE SAME PLATE!!! What you wanna die or something?

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