Tools:

-Stove

-Med. Saucepan

-Med. Pot (with lid if possible)

-Tongs/ Chopsticks (If you’re feeling skillful that day)

-Spatula/ Spoon (or mixture of the two)

-A regular bowl

-Small bowl

-A fork

-A plate

-Knife or knives

-Strainer

Materials: (Can be adjusted to one particular amount per person/ portion)

-Water

-Salt (this calls for Kosher salt but isn’t utterly needed)

-Sesame oil

-Soy sauce

-Packages of ramen (or noodles in general)

-A sugary thick sauce (teriyaki or orange chicken- your preference)

-Sesame seeds

-Carrots

-Eggs (you should make this on the side to your liking. In ramen it’s usually a runny hard-boiled egg)

-Cabbage

-Celery

-Bell peppers

-Onions

-Cilantro (also optional)

-Olive oil (blandish if you can help it)

-Rice wine vinegar

-Sugar

-Sake

-Mirin

-Pepper

-Ginger

-Garlic

For the ingredients it really doesn't matter what portion of veggies you put in so long as it's equal to the amount of noodles you have. For the broth however, there are more specific measurements that need to be made.

Using half a normal pot of water use these proportions of these materials in the broth:

1/4 cup souy sauce
tbsp sugar

tbsp mirrin

2 tbsp rice wine (sake)

This should make around 3 servings in all, with the stir-fry.

Step 1: Gathering and Placing Materials

It doesn’t seem like this should be a step but keep in mind that this meal calls for close eyes to be held on the materials as they cook, so it’s best to gather them properly or allow yourself the room to put you’re not running around like a chicken with your head cut-off. (that reminds me, you can put a protein in this dish, I just didn’t because most of the ingredients are technically optional anyway)

Step 2: Boiling Water and Making the Broth

Yeah, so if you haven’t boiled water in your life then I think it’s fair to say that either you have had an easy life, or had an impossibly hard life, or are super young; regardless I’m glad you are here now to learn how to do it right the first time. I said in the parentheses after the title of the dish that this step was different for this dish. This starts after you fill the pot with water. Cut a finger of ginger off of the root and place it in the water. You may also add some green onions or leeks, and a half an onion here. This will give the broth more of a complex flavor. Mix all of the liquid ingredients and sugar into a bowl and stir the mixture with a fork. After the contents of the bowl are mostly liquid add it to the water. Let this heat into a boil. At this point you can add cilantro if you have it, but if you hate whole foods, you are done in with preparation. Set the noodles in the broth and take it off the heat. (if that didn’t sound different enough take the tongs, and hold them over your head and sing the crab song; but instead of saying “all hail the mighty crab lord (insert your local crab congressman here)”; like ya do; and say “this ain’t your mom’s noodle soup” in whatever aggressive and offensive voice you deem fit.

Step 3: Preparing the Veggies

This is the calmer part of the recipe, you can take the longest here. Take the carrots, peel them and cut them however you like; I cut them thin and long but people like medallions or chopped carrots more. Slice the cabbage in to fourths and generally chop it; it isn’t essential to deconstruct it too much, you can but I just like big pieces of cabbage. Chop the celery making sure the white part connected to the roots isn’t in the pile of celery that you’re going to use. I like my onions small so what you need to do to replicate the recipe properly is to cut the sprout from the top of the onion, peel the first layer, and lay it on the cutting board cut side down. Slice down the middle, take the halves separately and slice vertically at multiple points on the side. Now cut horizontally, not cutting off any pieces this far. Now, chop the onions through making tiny squares of them. If you have bok choy you can just peel the bok choy to the core, and cut the leaves however you like. If you have any corn, I would suggest cutting it off of the ear into cornels. (If you want to add any other veggies here, I’d suggest looking up stir-fry recipes and adding the veggies you see there. These are the things I like the most in my stir-fry/ ramen.)

Step 4: Stir-Fry (This Is Where We Kick It Up a Notch)

Pour your olive oil (or safflower oil, it works good as well), into the pan and put it on max heat. Wait until the oil “glimmers” until you add anything in. At this point if you want you can mince some ginger and an equal amount of garlic and add them to the stir-fry. Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a bowl then pour the mixture over the veggies. Stir and coat them. Take out the noodles and transfer them to the pan. Mix everything together making sure that everything has been coated. Add sesame seeds. Add the sugary sauce and sprinkle a bit of sugar over the mixture then mix once again. Stir until everything is coated. Keep an eye on everything making sure that nothing burns, keep stirring. You will be done as soon as everything is mostly golden brown.

Step 5: Re-entering the Broth

Finally take the stir-fry and put the general amount you want into the bowl. Now, pour the broth over the stir-fry. You can take the time to garnish this if you want to take pictures of it, or are serving guests, or you can start scarfing it down as soon as it’s cool enough to eat. Please enjoy.

Step 6: Post-script

I made this to help people who need better ways to spice up something that isn’t as glorious as other meals, to something that can be eaten in public, or amongst respectable people. Really nothing but the ramen packets are necessary but I’m the kind of person that can’t just eat a PB&J sandwich. I’m not content with a basic recipe that any normal person can make. I think that every meal can be better if you improve the recipe. This is for anyone who has these things and doesn’t know what to do with it, or is sick of plain ramen. If at any step in the normal process you have the materials to do something different, I encourage you to do so; with any recipe.