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.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today, everyone is a little bit Irish.
The traditional dinner in the USA used to celebrate St. Patrick's Day is corned beef and cabbage.

A couple years ago I made my own corned beef from scratch. It turned out very good with more flavor than the store bought corned beef. However, I didn't have the time to make one from scratch so I bought one from Costco. I like the one's from Costco. They don't seem as salty as the inexpensive on-sale corned beef at the local supermarket.

Cooking is simple
Put the brisket in a big pot of water and boil/simmer for 2 to 2.5 hours.

Cabbage - some people like to boil separately, but I like to add the cabbage the last 15 minutes (sooner or later for desired tenderness) into the corned beef liquid. The same with the carrots.

Potatoes - Boiled with the corned beef the first 30 minutes. Afterwards, I removed the potatoes from the liquid, cut them into cubes. Added salt, pepper and some chopped onions. Coated with olive oil and a couple pats of butter.
Finally, I roasted the potatoes in the oven 375 F for the last 30 minutes.
By roasting, I wanted some add texture to the meal instead of having a fully boiled mushy meal.

The Final Dish
Sliced corned beef, a wedge of cabbage, carrots, roasted potatoes, rustic olive bread I found at the supermarket and a dollop of horseradish to add a little kick.
Overall a simple meal to prepare where the brisket was very moist and not too salty.