Apr 15, 2011: Daring Cooks - Edible Containers

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Mandatory Items: To make a SAVORY edible container and fill it with something appropriate.

[Eat4Fun: I tried to do something different than using vegetables. Renata provided a couple ideas, such as, the ramen basket and the toast cups. I tried to think of something that was simple and didn't require deep frying. Eggroll wrappers turned out nicely. Those are thin enough to bake or microwave. I tried using bacon. It worked, but was too much effort and created a mess, so in the end I didn't think it was worth it.]



NOODLE BASKET FOR SALADS
Ingredients

1 package ramen noodles (120gm) (4¼ oz)
boiling water (enough to completely cover the noodles)

Directions:
1. Place the dry noodles in a baking dish.

2. Pour boiling water over noodles until completely immersed.

3. When noodles are soft and start separating (about 5 minutes), drain and rinse with cold water.

4. Drain again, and set it aside until it starts getting sticky.

5. Use olive oil to grease the outside of baking cups and arrange them upside down on parchment paper.

6. Arrange noodles as shown in the photos. The sticky noodles will help the strings stay together making it easier to form the basket. 3 or 4 strings across, 3 or 4 strings down, and some strings around the bowl. Push all the excess strings close to the cup to form a lip. Don't overlap too many noodles, or they won't get crispy.

7. Bake at 230°C (450°F) (gas mark 8) preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.

8. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before trying to remove the noodle baskets from the cups.

9. Let cool completely.

10. Handle with care, the baskets are fragile!

11. You can make the baskets the day before using, they will keep fresh in an airtight container. On the third day it stars losing its crispiness.

12. Fill baskets with your favorite salad. If you're using a dressing, serve it aside or mix it to your veggies just before serving.


EGGS IN TOAST CUPS
Here are a few ideas for breakfast using slices of bread and eggs.

Ingredients:
Slices of bread

What am I going to do with the leftover bread after making these cute flower bowls, you ask....

Place the slice of bread in a buttered pan over low heat. Crack an egg into the “flower” slot and cook covered until the egg is done to your taste.

You may want to add cheese, ham, bacon...

Results:
Ramen baskets on the right.
Baked Eggroll Wrapper (left-forward)
Microwaved Eggroll Wrapper (Left-back)


Bacon Cup (Left) and Toast Flower (Right)

Oct 15: Money Ramen ?

Found an interesting flavor of ramen at the market... Chah Chiang flavor.

What is Chah Chiang?
I don't know, but it sounds like money! Chah Chiang!



Instructions: (As written on the package)
1. Add noodles to 2 cups of boiling water, cook for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally Don't over-cook(for shorter noodles, break noodles before cooking).

2. Put 4/5 soup from the pan to the bowl (A) add the soup-seasoning to the bowl (A) to be served as soup.

3. Put the chah-chiang sauce to the pan, and stir chah-chiang sauce evenly in the noodles. Put the noodles to the dish (B).

4. Ready to enjoy the delicious Chah-Chiang noodles(B) and tasty soup (A).

Dish of Noodles (B) and bowl of soup (A).


The soup tasted like "Oriental flavor" ramen and the chah-ching sauce was salty with soybean bits.

I ended up mixing plate(B) into bowl (A) to create the final dish, plus a little dallop of chili paste for extra bite.

Standard bowl of ramen. Nothing special. Salty and full of msg.


Ingredients: (As written on the package)
Oil Pack: Refined oil (contains one or more of followings: palm oil, sesame oil, soybean oil). refined salted-soy bean paste, chili paste, onion.

Soup Base Flavor Pack: Salt, monosodium glutamate, glucose, sugar, spices, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate, artificial flavor, dehydrated chives.

A lot of mysterious ingredient, but I don't see any money... nor did I taste anything special.
Just an average bowl of ramen.

That's it for today's post.
Time to checkout.
Chah-Chiang!

Sep 09: Ramen Cabbage Salad

During my college years, ramen was an inexpensive staple, but my repertoire was very limited to just cooking in water and adding a veg or meat. Ramen was a soup dish.

However, after college and pretending to be an adult, I went a potluck where a Japanese couple brought a cabbage slaw with ramen noodles. Interesting... I've never seen that before. The salad was delicious.

Here's my attempt at a Cabbage Salad with Ramen.

Since I was experimenting around, I kept the portions small. Just in case it didn't work out. Also, I kept the dish vegetarian by using fried tofu.

The Fixins'
-The Base
1 C Cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 C Nappa Cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 Package of Ramen, crushed

-The Topping
1/2 C fried Tofu (marinaded in soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and garlic powder)
2 T Waterchestnut, julienned
2 T Carrot, julienned
Lime Juice
Toasted sesame seed oil

Mix. I purposely kept the tofu topping lightly seasoned since I was adding a reduction on top.

-Soy Ginger Garlic Reduction
4T Soy sauce
2T Green onions, minced
1t Ginger, minced
1 clove Garlic, minced
Lime Juice (1 lime about 2T)

Lightly saute the garlic, green onion, ginger.
Add the lime juice and the soy sauce... mix and gently reduce the mixture.

-Dressing
Lime juice and Red wine vinegar... enough for 2T
1T Chive oil
1T Vegetable oil
1/4t Toasted Seasame Seed oil
couple pinches of sugar.

The Dressing - I like my dressing to be tart so I just used a couple pinches of sugar cut back on the tartness of the red wine vinegar.


The Dressing Mixed


The Salad
The Cabbage forms the base.
Uncooked ramen act as the croutons.
Tofu Salad topped with the soy sauce reduction.
Salad dressing drizzled around the salad.


The salad reminded me of a Chinese style chicken salad with a tart dressing. I think I smashed the ramen too much. :-)

The reduction is very intense. Has a strong garlic and green onion flavor. The soy is very present and pleasant. The lime juice adds the acidity that cuts through the strong flavors.

Mix everything together before eating makes for just the right amount of salt from the reduction.

Overall, not bad, but needs some more work. Next time I may add just a touch more sesame seed oil.

Using uncooked ramen!
Ramen is actually cooked before packaging. When made in the factory, the fresh noodles roll off the assembly line into a deep fat fryer. The deep frying dries the noodles for packaging. That's why a whole package of ramen is 400 or 500 Calories.

Apr 10 - Unique Ramen

Awhile back I was at an Asian market, I was amazed at the variety of ramen noodles - different flavors, manufacturers, packaging colors and from different countries.

This is only 2/3rds of the aisle of noodles. There's more!


For ramen, I'm familiar with chicken, beef, pork and oriental flavors. For the noodles in a cup, there's also a shrimp flavor. For my purchase I wanted to try something different.

I found a Kimchi flavored ramen from Korea. Kimchi is fermented Nappa cabbage that is usually a little tart, savory from the salt used to kick-off the fermentation process and fiery from the red chili powder.


Noodles look typical.


Cooking was simple. Bring 2.25 cups water to boil. Add the seasoning pack and noodles. Simmer 4 minutes.

The finished noodles, unadorned so I can get the flavor of the ramen without additions.


Overall...
The ramen was actually quite tasty. The noodles seemed to be just a little thicker than my typical brand. This gave the noodles a little more texture and firmness which I liked. Better than the mushy regular stuff.

The flavor was slightly oniony and the red peppers added a nice little punch. Fortunately, there was no tartness like real kimchi. I think that would have made for a very weird bowl of noodles if the taste was exactly like kimchi.