Simple Ramen, I think there’s noodle under there…

I love my ramen noodle!  It doesn’t get any easier than just throwing a bunch of stuff in a pot and add some noodles.  Here is what I did for this bowl, and I’ll share my deep dark secret with you on how I flavor the broth.

Evie’s Ramen #131

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of soba noodles
• a handful of enoki mushrooms, cleaned
• 3 baby napa cabbage
• 1 medium carrot
• a few slices of Asian BBQ
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp beef broth
• 1 tsp veal demi glaze
• cilantro for ganish

Directions:

1. Cut your carrots into pretty flower shapes!  Very optional, you can just slice them, but I had some extra time and making carrot flowers is fun.  I first cut my carrot into a 2 inch section, make sure the bottom and top are flat as can be so the carrot sits up completely straight.  Then I cut V-shaped sections all the way down the length of the carrot.  This might take a little practice to perfect.  After you’ve cut about 5 or 6 Vs all around the perimeter, making sure they are evenly spaced, turn the carrot sideways and cut them into slices.
2. Boil 3 cups of water, add the beef broth and veal demi glaze.  This is my secret ingredient as of lately, it’s super flavorful in any broth!  I purchased mine pre-packaged but you can also make your own, it just takes about oh 50000 hours.
3. Meanwhile in another pot, boil 4 cups of water, this is your blanching water.  Add the carrots, baby napa, and mushrooms.  Blanch everything for about 2 minutes or however long to get your desired texture (you might like a crunchier vegetable for example).    Drain and set aside.
4. Poach an egg using the blanching water, or if you prefer poaching it in a pan you can do that as well.
5. To the beef broth, add the BBQ, they only need about a minute to warm up.   Fish the BBQ out and set aside.  We cook the BBQ in the flavored broth as opposed to the blanching water because we want to keep the meaty flavor.  If you don’t have any Asian BBQ, you can substitute fried thick-sliced bacon.
6. Add the soba noodles to the beef broth.  Follow the directions on your package, but typically the thin kind takes about 2-3 minutes to cook.
7. Assemble all your ingredients!  First using a pasta spoon, grab all the noodles out of the broth and place in a bowl.  Then arrange the vegetables, egg, and meat over top.  Last, pour the broth over everything but make sure it doesn’t drown, then garnish with cilantro.  We pour the broth last to warm the vegetables up again if they got cold, and add a little flavor to them before eating.

And there you have it, another pretty bowl of ramen.  I think if there was a most-ramen-eaten-by-a-single-person award category, I would probably win it.