Really Rapid Ramen

In television programmes from my youth, American or Americanised, there was a universal truth that all sickness could be cured with a serving of hot steaming noodle soup. It was anthologised as the warming cure to all life’s ailments, from the bitterness of winter, the broth to mop up when your brow needed mopping, flavour to knock a flu out of your system served up in heaving, simmering bowls. Slick with umami, delicately spiced, long, stringy pasta absorbing all the goodness and returning back to the water it’s sheer starchiness.

Despite having clear memories of the soup, the smell, the feeling it gave your stomach, I don’t actually remember ever consuming it much as a child. But as an adult, I can’t think of anything more comforting. Pho, ramen, laksa: to me, it doesn’t matter what the flavour profile is, the etymology of the dish, the type of noodle used – if it’s slurpable, I want in on it. If I’m in a rush, hungover, drunk – any of these states, I always tend to pick up the corner shop sodium packet variant that goes for 3 hyper coloured portions for £1. But, in an attempt to see in the new year as a more wholesome person when it comes to body fuel, I’ve bid to make everything for the month from scratch where possible. And I’ve just about nailed how to pull together a plant based, pallet punching noodle soup, taking a big amount of admiration and inspiration from the miso laden ramen dishes plated up in Bone Daddies or Shoryu – two excellent chains in correlation to quality and value Japanese cooking. I’m aware that just two blog posts below this I talk about the cracking flavours in a quickly pulled together Thai green curry broth – but I’m about to one up that soupy goodness.

Ingredients 

1 Green Chilli
4 cloves of garlic
Thumb size piece of ginger
3 x onions of choice
1 tbsp of oil
1 tsp of turmeric
1 tsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of ground coriander
1 tsp of garlic granules
1 tsp of chilli powder
1 litre of vegetable stock
2 tbsp of soy sauce
3 tbsp of miso paste
1 can of coconut milk
1 packet of soba noodles
1 packet of pak choi
1-2 handfuls of spinach and/or kale
250-500g of good quality mushrooms (shittake, enoki or closed cup)
1/2 a lime
1 handful of chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp of sesame seeds
1 chopped up spring onion
Several lashings of Sriracha

1. I hate cutting stuff up. You do too. Roughly chop your green chilli, seeds in if you’re a spice girl, crush 4 gloves of garlic and a thumb of ginger through your mincer, and slice up an onion as well. I like to use a mixture of onions here if my cupboard allows for it, which it usually does – so don’t be afraid to throw yellow onion in with your shallots and spring onions. As much crunch as you can bare.
2. Fry this all up with a little oil in a thick based, big old vat of a pan for 3 or 4 minutes before adding turmeric, coriander and cumin into the mix. Like garlic flavours? Add some granules here as well. Love heat like me? Chilli powder goes in. Mix up and fry for another minute or so. Get those flavours SINGING.
3. We want more tang, in fact I demand it, so let’s add the umami. A litre of vegetable stock to loosen up all that sticky, spicy base, plus your soy sauce and miso paste. Throw in a can of coconut milk for good measure and let it all bubble away for a while.
   
4. Grab a pack of soba noodles, heat them for 5 minutes in a boiling pan, then drain and refresh in cold water. Leave on the side.
5. Throw in your spring greens. I like to add pak choi, left over spinach at the back of my fridge, and loose-leaf kale if I have any knocking around. Much like my onion hoarding, I tend to have a lot of a leftover greenery begging for a broth like this. Then I add the mushroom section – my total preference here is shitake as it works so well with absorbing the key flavours whilst thickening the broth – but if you’ve got some enoki and closed cup just waiting to grab the lime light, add those in as well and let it all simmer away for 3 minutes or so.
6. I personally am an advocate for citrus in all my Asian cooking, so I stab up half of a lime and squeeze it liberally over the bubbling broth, alongside a handful of freshly chopped coriander, before adding in my cold noodles until they’ve heated through. Then it’s off the boil, and ready for more seasoning.
7. You want to be eating with your eyes, so how we dress our dish is really important here. The yellow thick broth in itself looks wicked contrasted next to the bright greens of the pak choi, but once you’ve served up the broth and noodles into individual bowls, I like to sprinkle over sesame seeds in abundance – followed by some chopped red chilli if I’m serving to hot heads like myself. If I have leftover spring onion, that tends to bring some more textures to the dish that will add more excitement to the serving. I squeeze sriracha over as well because I’m an animal, but this can be left on the table for your guests to abstain or partake as they wish.
8. Eat up. Slurp it. Suck it. Chew the noodles. Have a whole leaf of pak choi slip down your throat unexpectedly. Crunch away at the onion selection you’ve carefully selected. I’m addicted to the broth that houses this all, so I tend to find myself ladelling some extra into my bowl once I’ve finished it off. It feels decadent and filling without knocking you out, and you’ll need to blow your nose once you’re done with it. The best part? It really does take 20 minutes start to finish if you prep yourself well.