Loaded Ramen

I kind of like it. One of my shameful little secrets

I discovered "real" Japanese noodles a few years ago at the local Chinese grocery. There is a HUGE difference between the dried "ramen packs", as well as those "pre-cooked" packages of "soft" udon, that you get at the local grocery, and the actual noodles you cook. "Freshly cooked" is so much better, I've never even gone near the stuff in the grocery again.

I like the authentic Japanese style stuff well enough, but I mostly "do my own thing" when cooking these noodles for a meal. Udon is great with a pesto and a little meat - say, pork or crispy chicken, both sliced thin. Not very "Japanese" at all - my daughter cringes when she sees me eating this sort of thing - but, IMHO, delicious and very, very easy. Hokkaido style miso variants are good (and easy), recipes for which you can find all over the web. You can get a taste for the amazing variety of Japanese noodle dishes at Japanology.org's pages on food and drink, or even on the (really short) "Japanese noodles" Wikipedia page.

And, then - completely "off-topic" AFA noodle dishes are concerned - there's the "donburi" dishes: Japanese rice bowls. These are so popular that there is a chain called don² donburi

which I visited in Honolulu (which isn't there now, I understand), who made a really great oyakodon (which, literally translated, is "parent-and-child rice bowl" - the dish has both chicken meat and egg in it), and who catered to the locals by making a great "loco moco", a dish which was apparently concocted locally in Hawaii by local Japanese-oriented food places at the request of kids who wanted a "burger" fast food - but it has a "Japanese spin" in that it's a variety of donburi with a burger. There are endless variations on this basic "loco moco" at a lot of restaurants in Hawaii.

ETA: I just noticed that I've been inadvertently making "unadon" ("una" = short for "unagi", which is Japanese "eel") for some years now. I found canned fish at the same local Chinese grocery a while back and found that I really like canned, spicy eel - so I've been putting it on both noodles and rice for some time without knowing I was mimicking this dish. I know, I know: "spicy eel" might not sound all that appetizing, but it's really good stuff - just IMHO.

This one pictures a short rib version (of "loco moco") made at Moena Cafe in Kona (on the "Big Island"), with the more-or-less "traditional" egg-on-top, served on rice.


My favorite Japanese noodle, however, is somen. Unlike udon, which takes over 10 minutes to cook completely, somen is very thin, about the same as angel hair spaghetti pasta, and cooks properly in about 2 1/2 minutes. It cooks so fast that I've experimented a bit and found that it's adequately cooked to a usable texture just sitting in a bowl of hot water that you just boiled - in about 6 or 7 minutes. A packet of instant miso (readily obtainable virtually everywhere - even in my local HEB grocery here in Austin), some dried veg/herbs and your selection of pre-cooked meat (the hardest thing to carry safely in a reasonably edible form) and maybe a few slices of a boiled egg - and you got yourself a meal.

That sounds good. I'll keep my eyes open for a chance to try it.

Ramen is basically Japanese junk food with so little nutrition it scarcely meets the definition of food. So I try to avoid it.

However, as mentioned above it is cheap and convenient.

When I do eat it (rarely) I kick mine up by adding instant brown rice, egg, and diced mixed vegetables.
This thread has me thinking. Maybe I should try adding a small amount of unflavored whey powder, or some cereal (grape nuts)?

It's pasta ;-) Since it is baked ramen, and wheat. Hah!