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Sunday, April 27, 2014

Ramen Girl...

DIY Ramen Seasoning

The story of  one girls search for the perfect bowl of Ramen,

No I am not THAT Ramen Girl, obviously....I am the home sick, to tired to cook, need to feed children quickly kind of Ramen girl.


Who doesn’t remember coming home from school, grabbing that individual red and white packet, popping a bowl of water in the “nuker” and fighting with the little foil packet of overly salted flavor goodness for a quick meal.  It was the food for when mom and dad where not home to make dinner, the cheap eats that got us through college, and the warm winter meal when we were sick or in my case, just to lazy to cook dinner. Ramen Noodles.

I love ramen in just about every flavor. And there were lots of flavors. There was chicken, shrimp, beef, kimchi and hot and spicy varieties. In my youth I ate it right out of the package, uncooked sprinkling the packet O'flavor on the crunchy noodles. In college it was the food of necessity. Now, I add sliced steak, shredded veggies and some hard boiled or even shoyu pickled eggs. If you have had bad experiences with certain brands and unidentifiable "ingredients" but still like ramen type soups this is the recipe for you. Or you can shoot over and give my fish based more "grown up" recipe a try-(check it out). 

Unfortunately, anyone who has stumble onto this blog and actually read it will know that I have gone from carefree food girl, to (semi) gluten free girl because of a combination of old age and digestive problems.

This meant Ramen's traditional yellow curly noodle and gluten laden flavor packets was out. What’s a girl to do. I could cry in my empty bowl, pay the ridiculous price for gluten free (and tasteless) ramen type noodles, OR make my own.We all know option number 3 is my style. I googled a ton of DIY ramen seasoning recipes. Tried many of them, and then decided to mix and match to find the perfect taste. Here is what I came up with.Your tastes may differ, so I recommend playing with the amounts until you get your perfect Ramen!

Basic “Chicken” Ramen Seasoning
3 tablespoons cayenne
3 tablespoons Truvia
5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger (i like heavy ginger, this may need adjusting for others)
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper
8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

Mix it in a bowl and place in a container for storage 2 tbs to 3 cups of water (give or take on each of the spices depending on your taste)

Now as mentioned above, you can make various types of ramenesque seasoning by adjusting the ingredient list ever so slightly.

DIY “Beef” Ramen Seasoning
3 tablespoons cayenne
3 tablespoons Truvia
5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper
8 tablespoons BEEF bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Spicy” Ramen Seasoning
5 tablespoons cayenne
3 tablespoons Truvia
5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper
8 tablespoons chicken or beef bullion (you get the idea on changing the base “flavor” by now. Chicken, Beef, fish bullion, even vegetable works fine)
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Kimchi” Ramen Seasoning
2 tablespoons cayenne
3 tablespoons ground dried Kimchi (see below)
3 tablespoons Truvia
5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper
8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

This one takes a bit more effort to make. If you are a Kimchi fan, as I am, and you make your own, set a jar in the back of the fridge and forget it for 2 months or so. Then remove it, drain and dehydrate until it turns into kimchi chips. Throw those in the blender or in my case my magic bullet and turn into powder. Voila!! Kimchi powder. All the unctuous, spicy, cabbagie goodness in dust form.

If you don’t make your own kimchi there are two other ways to do this. One- go to the grocery story and buy already made kimchi, then dehydrate and grind or if you live near an Asian market you can often find already dehydrated kimchi “chips” in the junk food isle. Grind those up and off you go.

Customize and adapt: 
These DIY recipes are infinitely customizable.  Mix and match as you see fit! In my trials I used gluten free bullion, low sodium bullion and Truvia instead of sugar. Yes, one bullion brand even had….MSG. GASP! But it did not really matter one way or the other. The taste was similar whether I used low sodium, non msg or regular. I prefer the low sodium, gluten free variety myself. But that's just me.

The only thing I have not been able to overcome is the noodle issue. The type of noodle used in classic ramen is a gluten based noodle. That can normally be found in the international isle of your grocery store if you want to buy just the dried noodle. I have experimented with bean thread noodles and they were not bad. I also have tried the Korean glass noodles, made with sweet potato starch, chewy, also not bad, but I have not yet found that PERFECT gluten free noodle that screams I AM RAMEN.  If you have found my missing noodles, let me know where and what brand, I will will be a happy girl. 

Until then, enjoy with your favorite noodle. 

 


18 comments:

  1. I am very displeased. When I make ramen unless it says 'Spicy' I do NOT want it to be spicy. Very regularly when I make recipes I trust the recipe and don't question it.

    For the chicken broth it says 3 TABLESPOONS of Cayenne, meaning spicy as hell. As a babysitter watching kids often includes cooking food for them. I am watching 2 kids and made the base, then cooked it up. AT the current moment in time, their teary eyed, won';t eat it because of the HEAT and CAN'T eat anything else because their mouth's LITERALLY HURT. I wasn't thinking about it, I was just in a rush to put the damn mix together so I didn't stop to think that Cayenne pepper in such amounts could be bad.

    If you are also unfortunate enough to have made this I suggest A LOT of milk in the broth, adding a lot of sugar into the broth also helps.

    However. If you are VERY into heated Ramen that will numb your mouth this is the recipe for you.

    if I had stars it would be a one. And that is generous. I'm extremely unhappy, glad that the kids I'm watching have good parents. If it wasn't family friends my pay would've been docked on the spot.

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    1. I did say that these should be adjusted for your taste. I do not find it spicy but i can see how children might. I am sorry for the children, but you should always taste as you go as everyone's tastes are different. Also, 3 tbs is meant to be in the over all recipe. You then use only a fraction of the mix per pot of ramen. It is not meant for the recipe to be used all at once to make a whole pot.

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    2. This might be the worst comment of all time - you blame the recipe for being spicy - even though you clearly saw it has cayenne - and you fed it to kids? You didn't taste test it? Try it? Adjust it? You just fed it to them, then blamed the recipe - lmao - I am amazed anyone ever trusted you with their kids in the first place.


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  2. I haven't seen any but there should be a way to make you own gluten free noodles at home and dry them. We had a neighbor back when I was a child that made all their
    noodles, but that was way before the gluten free era

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  3. Hi there, I was just wondering.... why all the Truvia? I have seen a few of these similar soup bases (yours looks the closest to chicken ichiban from the pictures which is what i am trying to replicate haha), but I havent see any sweeteners in the ohters.... 3 tablespoons of sweetener according to Truvias site is equal to almost 3/4 of a cup of sugar which seems insane....

    Can I do this without Truvia or any sweetener or is it really needed?

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    1. You can easily skip the sweetner or change it with sugar. I like it as I find it helps to balance the flavor. If I remember correctly I only used trivia because I was out of sugar at the time.

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  4. FANTASTIC idea. I love ramen, but I've been experimenting with ways to eat it without dying of sodium overdose lol. I'll probably be giving the kimchi one a go.

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  5. Rice vermicelli or mai fun noodles are gluten free and the closest thing I have found to actual ramen noodles. Plus they are really cheap is a plus.

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  6. Rice vermicelli or mai fun noodles. This is the closest gluten free noodles I have found.

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  7. Can't wait to try this, looks like the perfect way to make super quick ramen without the calories. (Also I love spicy food!)

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  8. I see that you used Truvia in each recipe. I do not like the taste. Can the Truvia be left out completely or can sugar be substituted?

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    Replies
    1. You can easily skip the sweetner or change it with sugar. I like it as I find it helps to balance the flavor. If I remember correctly I only used trivia because I was out of sugar at the time.

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  9. As a lover of all things kimchi related, I love this post. So much win!

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  10. King Soba makes a 100% brown rice noodle that is organic and gluten free.

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  11. My son have a wheat allergy and I go to the Asian food section and found pre-portioned rice "sticks" and he just substitutes until we realized the seasoning has wheat in it too. We will be trying this for sure!!

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  12. Thanks Keldra Our family loves the homemade version!

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