The Art of Instant Noodle Cooking: A Review of Waley Brand Ensen Ramen

As a self-proclaimed instant noodle aficionado, I'm always on the lookout for new and exciting flavors to add to my repertoire. Recently, I had the pleasure of trying out the Waley brand Ensen Ramen, a Taiwanese instant noodle that has been making waves online. This particular flavor is called "Cha Chiang," which translates to "fried sauce" in English. What sets this ramen apart from its competitors is that it comes with a brick of noodles and two separate seasoning packets - one for the noodles and another for creating a soup.

To start, I measured out two cups of water into my pot and added the flavoring packet. This paste-like substance was designed to cling onto the noodles as they cooked, and I was eager to see how it would work its magic. As I waited for the water to boil, I also opened up the second seasoning packet, which contained a spicy mix of ingredients. Once the water reached a rolling boil, I added the noodle block to the pot, taking care to loosen up the noodles slightly as they cooked.

The next step was to combine the cooked noodles with the paste and raw garlic that had been added to the bowl. I wanted to ensure that the garlic was evenly distributed throughout the dish, so I gave it a good stir before setting it aside to wait for the finishing touches. Meanwhile, I quickly blanched some bean sprouts, which added a burst of freshness to the dish. These sprouts were a nod to my desire to include more vegetables in my meals, even if they weren't always the healthiest option.

With the soup packet now within reach, I carefully poured it into the bowl, taking care not to overflow the edges. The seasoning packet contained a dehydrated scallion and what I could only assume was some MSG - both of which added depth and umami flavor to the dish. As I waited for the egg to set, I also sprinkled some green onions on top of the noodles, adding a pop of color and freshness to the plate.

Finally, it was time to add the crowning glory to my Ensen Ramen: a fried egg. I cracked this bad boy into the bowl, watching as the whites set and the yolks began to ooze out. The next step was to drizzle some toasted sesame oil over the top, adding a rich and nutty flavor that complemented the savory broth perfectly.

The moment of truth arrived when I added the finishing touch - a drizzle of chili sauce from the restaurant 886. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill hot sauce; instead, it was more like a flavorful sauce that added depth and umami to the dish without overpowering it. As I took my first bite, I was hit with a wave of flavors that were both familiar and exciting.

One of the things that I loved most about this Ensen Ramen was its balance of flavors. The broth was light and savory, but rich enough to stand on its own - while the noodles had a satisfying chewiness to them without being too overcooked or underseasoned. The addition of the fried egg added creaminess and richness, while the bean sprouts provided a burst of freshness. And let's not forget the chili sauce, which added a subtle kick that tied everything together.

As I sat down to enjoy my Waley brand Ensen Ramen, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. This dish was a staple of my college days - a quick and easy meal that never failed to hit the spot. And yet, despite its humble origins, this ramen had managed to elevate itself to new heights, with a rich and savory broth that reminded me of home.

In short, Waley brand Ensen Ramen is a game-changer for anyone looking to mix up their instant noodle routine. With its rich and umami flavors, balanced seasoning, and satisfying texture, it's no wonder why this dish has been making waves online. And at an affordable price point, it's also a great option for those on a budget. Whether you're a seasoned instant noodle connoisseur or just looking to try something new, I highly recommend giving Waley brand Ensen Ramen a shot - your taste buds will thank you!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday we're in the test kitchen upgrading instant ramen i love everything about instant ramen i mean what's not to love when i think of instant ramen i think of kind of coil wavy noodles that cook virtually instantly it brings everything to me nostalgia what i grew up eating it's one of those pantry staples you can elevate it or you can keep it as simple as you'd like spicy umami texture crunch so simple so approachable anyone can make a good meal with it oh you have to slurp yeah we got a slurp it's hot it's cooked let's go like slurp it nobody needed to see that i love instant ramen because it's a blank canvas i've made a lot of mistakes with instant ramen especially with ketchup and instant ramen that's disgusting i'm upgrading uh top ramen chicken flavor this is the one that i always have in my house i'm upgrading the ramen by creating a flavorful broth you can start with bonito flakes and kombu kind of like a dashi style this is going to give me a very umami flavor profile and for protein i'm adding soy eggs which i always have in my house i really like my broth spicy some of this uh chili crisp the color appeals to me also when it turns red i like to have a condiment like liquid gold and have a little texture there with a little crispy garlic a little bit of uh toasted sesame and then some nori sheets over the top i mean this is the way i like to eat my top ramen i think super simple it's flavorful straight to the point all right first what we want to do is put the vegetable stock in we're going to put the our bonito our kombu we're also gonna put ah msg i love it oh wait wait wait i'm sorry it says no editor msg so we're basically like making dashi i mean it's kind of base for a lot of soups in japanese culture so the broth has come to a boil we're going to turn it off so i'm going to strain it i love kind of that fishy umami kind of flavor there so i'm going to use fish sauce as our salt situation i'm just doing a couple of dabs it's seasoned it's not salty so now drop your ramen in there i learned a lot about cooking through insta ramen really exciting truth you know what makes sense doesn't make sense tomatoes and ramen don't make sense you know what i'm saying all right game changer what i'm looking for is making sure i still have broth that's key this is ready to go from my experience of uh making uh michelin star food yeah all right so you want to build the canvas with the noodle you don't get crazy and put the broth right in there okay you got to build it up first especially doing this in front of the ladies you want them to see the art and the technique of making this the ramen this is just not putting a packet of water and the and the flavorings in this you know there's a lot of love and care that goes into this all right next what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and put our soy eggs which are amazing so these are six-minute eggs that have been cured in soy sauce we're gonna go ahead and add our nori sheets and then this chili crisp this is spicy on the side right there there's coffee garlic some seasonings in there garlic oil all type of stuff a little bit of sesame season on my eggs a couple of sprigs of cilantro just for greenery and then we add the broth itself and then i always eat it with a side of rice because i'm a g like that boom instant ramen by your boy uncle hal come see me so good all of this is really um balanced correctly spicy texture crunch it's all in there and if i'm looking for a little bit of saltiness i break this egg up and then the best part is ah the broth is amazing i mean i feel great about this ramen because it's the ramen i had last week it's the same i'm honored and humbled to introduce nong shims shinra man truly canon in my opinion the flavor is spicy so it has like a dried spicy chili powder but it also has these dried flavor pellets kind of like dehydrated vegetables and so forth i love it i love the texture i grew up eating it and nostalgia is incredibly provocative and powerful for taste right so if this is something that you grow up on it evokes so much more than just like nourishment the flavor is already gourmet spicy we don't need to put any more gourmet things in here it's already perfect so my thing is about timing and my thing is about execution it's about the amount of water it's amount it's about how long the noodle's going for you know it's really hard to eat these noodles without kimchi for me the pairing this is it this is my peanut butter and jelly so this is how i make it um we have about a cup and a half of water in here that's gonna come up to a boil really fast so we got the dried soup base i dropped that in here first you're making that broth i like it tighter i like it spicier so that's why i'm using less water than it specifies then we have vegetable mix oh umami no it actually does smell like mushrooms so these are going to be like dried scallions and onions now we got the soup base going i just dropped my egg in here and you're going to see the whites of the eggs kind of surrounded and cooked and fully poached just a gel texture of the yolk is what i want i want to be able to pick it up with my chopsticks taste it so this is when i add the noodles i let the noodles go for about a minute and 30 seconds it's doing its thing it's getting submerged in this beautiful boiling liquid i'm kind of moving it around a little bit just to see where it's at in terms of texture indeed gourmet spicy is what i'm picking up dj gourmet spicy okay so i'm gonna pull it oh my god look at this egg right here okay i love the way that the egg set and is intact there's broth but not too much of it i know this is the color i want it's a fiery gourmet spicy red boom right there that's what i want i want to be able to pick it up so good it's such like a great vehicle for kimchi getting in your hair like this slurping i would pull the noodles for me definitely earlier than you think because again it's going to continue to cook in that broth you don't really need need to do a lot this is like this is like a ripe fruit at its perfect temperature almost like the more simple for me that's the better experience sometimes what i'll do is eat all the noodles save the egg put the rice in here and then you have a egg rice gourmet spicy broth experience usually when i make instant ramen i will use the noodles as a shortcut to like a really flavorful noodle dish it's the ability to have that like that wonderful chew and that texture that i really go for and stay with me here but i thought like why not like use them as a way of making kachoi pepe i know that we've already reached peak cachio but i think these noodles and even the flavor packet like honestly i want to see like a little pinch of that in with that pecorino like butter and like black peppery like saucy mixture and that's part of the reason that i did the soy sauce flavor just something that's like pretty like neutral base but soy mommy salts i think all of it's gonna play pretty nicely together we're gonna blend up half this cheese now this is pecorino between parm and pecorino i generally prefer parmesan but pecorino is power it's like really funky it's really salty it's aggressive so next thing we're gonna do i'm just gonna do a little bit of salt in the water salt is gonna be an issue in this dish potentially at least because the pecorino is so high in salt and then any amount of the flavor packet there again like nice you know on a couple teaspoons of black peppercorn and we're gonna toast it just to kind of release some of those aromatics the oils in the peppercorn that's just arresting the toasting of the pepper and that's going to form the foundation of our sauce so now we take a little bit of butter and start working up an emulsion here it takes a little bit of work to do you need constant motion you don't just want the butter to melt at this point you can start working in some cheese i want to add enough pasta water to keep this pretty fluid if anything i'm going to keep it on the wet side because water water's being driven off as we're doing this all right while that is finishing coming together i'm going to drop the noodles in all right so it's starting to break apart gotta fight the tendency to want to like pluck them apart too soon i want to put a little bit of this soy sauce flavor packet in here i just want to taste this like as is with that little bit of flavor packet added doing like the crazy arms uh yeah it's fun so i just want to keep this a little bit on the saucy side just i want to make sure these fully come together and the noodle as it continues to cook a little bit is going to um going to pick up some of that moisture take a little more cheese you know it's a good time to make some adjustments you know we definitely kept the noodle a little bit on the more uh toothsome side but i think we're gonna be in good shape okay we're there i feel really good about this sauce is clinging scallion's just like that pop of freshness just like cutting through a touch more black pepper nobody needed to see that this is so good and you know what honestly as an eating experience it's like everything is in every single mouthful black pepper the pecorino and the soy working together yes is it an off-label use you know not exactly street legal i'll give you that but i think it's also super fun it's super delicious and we didn't have to do much to nudge it off in a completely different direction today i'm making instant ramen and i'm using kind of fresh instant ramen by sun noodles this is the pork flavor i love dried noodles too but when i want just something a little bit closer to what i would get in a restaurant i offer these so this way of ramen is my go-to i almost always have eggs garlic chili crisp it's important to me to just add some green to my ramen to make it a little bit more healthier for me and then some mushrooms to start i'm going to take my noodles to the stove and we're going to fry up upwork so i'm just going to heat up the pot and then dump this in there so you could use a nonstick pot that's fine but i want the pork to kind of crisp up a little bit more and i want that fond to develop at the bottom of the pot because fondant flavor you don't want to waste it and i'm going to use the same pot to make our broth so let it cook undisturbed for about three to four minutes and you can see it's already starting to kind of brown this is the longest part of making this ramen it's worth it it's honestly low effort for a lot of payout in terms of flavor and texture i think i'm ready to get this out of the pan fish this out i'm gonna go ahead and add my chopped garlic and some scallion i don't want to brown the garlic and scallions i just wanted to kind of warm through and lose that raw quality and then we're going to add this little kind of pasty situation it smells like it smells so flavorful it's super savory you know because it's the pork flavor you can really get that pork smell in there ready to add this in i'm going to add water and that is going to kind of help release all of that brown caramelization i'm going to let this come up to a gentle simmer and while that happens let's cook our noodles just make sure to spread them out otherwise they'll clump in jiggle them around a little bit texturally i like thin noodles in my ramen ooh look at how stretchy and bouncy they were you won't get this from the dried kind not cured this is red our noodles are done i'm going to use the same water to cook my greens we have yuchoy here super delicious chinese green similar to bok choy this doesn't need too long about a minute i'm gonna go to my broth for just a second i'm gonna add the soy sauce the soy sauce is gonna add obviously a little bit of saltiness and some um umami kind of depth of flavor i think the yuchoy is done this is definitely on the crunchier side but you do you cook it longer if you want it to be soft time to plate i'm ready you don't have a lot of time once your noodles are cooked because the longer they sit you know they're gonna start sticking together you don't want to let them get to that point so okay gonna top with some crunchy pork enoki mushrooms the uchoy right here this is a six to six and a half minute egg it's going to be super jammy inside the white is so properly set look at that okay and that is also going to make the broth even more creamier the yolk is going to get all mixed in so good scallion it up and then lots of chilli crisp i like a lot of it there she is ready to be sloped please enjoy my non-existent chopstick skills that's so good i can really taste the garlic and scallions and having the chewiness of the ramen and having some crunch with your vegetables is just so satisfying and comforting and um i know i ate something delicious and that makes me happy so everybody knows nissan top ramen this is like the bougie version of nissan ramen it is the soy sauce flavor i love it if you just wanted to throw this together in literally water it would still be really good but for me i like to really upgrade my ramen and give it a nice umami punch so the first thing i'm going to do here is just give this broth a little shake it's a little bit thicker than a normal stock so i think that adds value to this dish very well i also have some sauteed garlic and scallions it brings out the flavor and the aromatics really well we're gonna add some white miso it's just gonna elevate it and give it that ramen flavor that we all love i also have uh some red pepper flakes i like to sweat i like to just shovel the ramen in my mouth and have sweat beads down my face if you if you're not doing that you're not doing it right uh we've got a little more soy sauce and i also have some mirror in here as i'm a plant-based chef i love to integrate some of my favorite elements such as mushrooms my taki mushrooms go really well with this dish i have eaten brand nori here and all i'm gonna do is cut the nori into strips and i'm saving some for the end just to top the ramen all right so i'm just gonna allow my ramen to come to a rolling boil but i also have some really fun additions as well such as some yuba here which is dried tofu skins they kind of have a new umami flavor of their own that i can't quite describe but i wish you could smell it oh that smells damn good so and other ramen brands you'll usually have a dehydrated like spice packet inside uh but this one actually just came with soy sauce personally i think it makes for a very rich broth it imparts additional saltiness again i know it's very salty it's not like i eat ramen every night but i really like my ramen to be extremely salty in goes my noodles there's so many flavors in it you don't really need to let the broth simmer or cook for so very long and i think that's really special because most really great broths take time our noodles are almost ready i want them to have a nice bite to them at this time i'm going to add my favorite green my little baby bok choys and what i'm going to do is allow these to kind of cook into that broth for a little bit our yuba is rehydrated i just want to show you here it's like the dried ones they kind of cut into these spirally chunks so it adds a really nice textural chew to the dish you didn't see that i'm gonna remove my bok choy now our ramen is ready and we can remove it from the heat and get to plating i feel very good about these so we're just gonna dump that in gently oh that's beautiful already so the first thing i'm actually gonna do here is add my scotch bonnet pepper oil what i did is i threw like a cup of olive oil on the stovetop with about five pierced scotch bonnet peppers which are super super spicy so i'm just using this little dropper a little bit goes a long way like i added a lot but if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen next up some of these bok choy babies the egg always looks so beautiful in ramen so i'm really compensating here you know what i mean coming back with the nori sheets some seared maitake mushrooms these are a delicious add-in to any ramen it's all about the mushrooms every day all the time so i have some crispy fried shallots here i love having a crunchy element to every meal some fresh chopped scallion and we've got some for cocky seasoning it's just going to give a little punch to the top little more red pepper flakes mostly for the colourpop this is going to be spicy and absolutely delicious let's really get in there i can't even the noodles have the perfect texture a little bit chewy but not overly chewy and they're not falling apart and i'm still tasting the spice from the scotch bonnet oil on the back end and i slowly feel sweat beads forming on my head and that means i've done it right but the bok choid kind of brings you in brings you back to home base neutralizes all of those flavors and then you go in for some more so gotta say this is some damn see the fails happening this is some damn good ramen so this is a very specific ensen ramen this is from taiwan it's called weilitz which is whaley brand instant noodles with jajang flavors cha chiang is fried sauce it's like fermented bean paste sort of flavor so what's so special about this one is that it comes with soup what that means is it has a brick of noodle and two like different seasoning packet one is to flavor your noodles and another one is to make a bowl of soup with it most of these things i have on hand at all times so it's an easy way for me to like use my produce and also i love seaweed so much because it's dry so it never goes bad i'm the type of person because i cook so much for work i don't actually spend much time cooking for myself so what's important for me when it comes to instant noodle is that i want convenient i want something that comes together really fast first thing we have two cups of water measured out here i'm gonna open this up and take out the the flavoring packet this is the paste socket for the noodles just gonna squeeze it in here it's gonna really nicely cling onto the noodles once noodle is like cooked and hot we're gonna toss it in the sauce and in addition to the paste we're gonna add some raw garlic to it and now we wait for the water to boil boil water's boiling so this is a noodle block we're gonna add this to our boiling water and i want to try to start to loosen up the noodles a little bit as it cooks i like the noodles to be al dente just a little more on the chewier side sometimes the instructions are there for reasons just like that into this bowl now we're just gonna mix it together with the paste and the raw garlic and you wanna make sure the garlic is like evenly distributed so you won't have one bite with very pungent garlic now i'm gonna quickly blanch our bean sprouts for me when i'm having a ramen meal i feel guilty because it's like not the healthiest thing to have so i always like want to make sure i have some sort of fresh vegetable in it and this is my attempt of adding some fresh vegetable into my meal nutrition we're gonna add our soup packet which is all the seasoning you need in this soup it's entirely different flavor from the noodles dehydrated scallion and i'm sure there's some nice msg in there now we're gonna drop the egg in there nice and slowly and doing a little like circle so the eggs has some space to expand and cooked and once the eggs are set let's grab the seaweed and kind of break it apart this is also my attempt of adding vegetable into my meal well now our seaweed egg drop soup is done so we're gonna plate the noodles it's still nice and hot amazing next we're gonna put our bean sprout on the side and then a nice fried egg anything is good when it's topped with it we're gonna sprinkle some green onion and then we're gonna drizzle it with some nice toasted sesame oil final little touch i love this chili sauce it's from the restaurant 886. it's more of like adding flavor than adding heat which i like we're gonna pour this soup in here you can also garnish it with some scallion and a nice drop of sesame oil there you have it what i love about this is how cheap how little money and how fast everything comes together this is making me want beer just it's it has very rich flavor it's like fermented umami very very savory it has some ponchiness from the raw garlic that was like a part of the sauce i like to you know go like back and forth between the the two because this is like a brothelless noodle so it's nice to have a side of soup on the side but the flavor in this soup is i would say on the lighter side and this one it's richer so this soup complements it really well it's very satisfying very very comforting and it's kind of reminding me of home you know i used to eat it a lot as a college student you know it's a very cheap meal to make and you know nutrition-wise it's pretty balanced you got some carb you got some fat you got some protein vegetable spot-on you thought i liked raw noodles when i cooked it you could actually eat the whole thing raw i just put the spicy mix in here close it up here and you like bash it a little bit and then you kind of shake it up shake and bake then what you have is a crunchy gourmet spicy snack and you can just eat it like thistoday we're in the test kitchen upgrading instant ramen i love everything about instant ramen i mean what's not to love when i think of instant ramen i think of kind of coil wavy noodles that cook virtually instantly it brings everything to me nostalgia what i grew up eating it's one of those pantry staples you can elevate it or you can keep it as simple as you'd like spicy umami texture crunch so simple so approachable anyone can make a good meal with it oh you have to slurp yeah we got a slurp it's hot it's cooked let's go like slurp it nobody needed to see that i love instant ramen because it's a blank canvas i've made a lot of mistakes with instant ramen especially with ketchup and instant ramen that's disgusting i'm upgrading uh top ramen chicken flavor this is the one that i always have in my house i'm upgrading the ramen by creating a flavorful broth you can start with bonito flakes and kombu kind of like a dashi style this is going to give me a very umami flavor profile and for protein i'm adding soy eggs which i always have in my house i really like my broth spicy some of this uh chili crisp the color appeals to me also when it turns red i like to have a condiment like liquid gold and have a little texture there with a little crispy garlic a little bit of uh toasted sesame and then some nori sheets over the top i mean this is the way i like to eat my top ramen i think super simple it's flavorful straight to the point all right first what we want to do is put the vegetable stock in we're going to put the our bonito our kombu we're also gonna put ah msg i love it oh wait wait wait i'm sorry it says no editor msg so we're basically like making dashi i mean it's kind of base for a lot of soups in japanese culture so the broth has come to a boil we're going to turn it off so i'm going to strain it i love kind of that fishy umami kind of flavor there so i'm going to use fish sauce as our salt situation i'm just doing a couple of dabs it's seasoned it's not salty so now drop your ramen in there i learned a lot about cooking through insta ramen really exciting truth you know what makes sense doesn't make sense tomatoes and ramen don't make sense you know what i'm saying all right game changer what i'm looking for is making sure i still have broth that's key this is ready to go from my experience of uh making uh michelin star food yeah all right so you want to build the canvas with the noodle you don't get crazy and put the broth right in there okay you got to build it up first especially doing this in front of the ladies you want them to see the art and the technique of making this the ramen this is just not putting a packet of water and the and the flavorings in this you know there's a lot of love and care that goes into this all right next what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and put our soy eggs which are amazing so these are six-minute eggs that have been cured in soy sauce we're gonna go ahead and add our nori sheets and then this chili crisp this is spicy on the side right there there's coffee garlic some seasonings in there garlic oil all type of stuff a little bit of sesame season on my eggs a couple of sprigs of cilantro just for greenery and then we add the broth itself and then i always eat it with a side of rice because i'm a g like that boom instant ramen by your boy uncle hal come see me so good all of this is really um balanced correctly spicy texture crunch it's all in there and if i'm looking for a little bit of saltiness i break this egg up and then the best part is ah the broth is amazing i mean i feel great about this ramen because it's the ramen i had last week it's the same i'm honored and humbled to introduce nong shims shinra man truly canon in my opinion the flavor is spicy so it has like a dried spicy chili powder but it also has these dried flavor pellets kind of like dehydrated vegetables and so forth i love it i love the texture i grew up eating it and nostalgia is incredibly provocative and powerful for taste right so if this is something that you grow up on it evokes so much more than just like nourishment the flavor is already gourmet spicy we don't need to put any more gourmet things in here it's already perfect so my thing is about timing and my thing is about execution it's about the amount of water it's amount it's about how long the noodle's going for you know it's really hard to eat these noodles without kimchi for me the pairing this is it this is my peanut butter and jelly so this is how i make it um we have about a cup and a half of water in here that's gonna come up to a boil really fast so we got the dried soup base i dropped that in here first you're making that broth i like it tighter i like it spicier so that's why i'm using less water than it specifies then we have vegetable mix oh umami no it actually does smell like mushrooms so these are going to be like dried scallions and onions now we got the soup base going i just dropped my egg in here and you're going to see the whites of the eggs kind of surrounded and cooked and fully poached just a gel texture of the yolk is what i want i want to be able to pick it up with my chopsticks taste it so this is when i add the noodles i let the noodles go for about a minute and 30 seconds it's doing its thing it's getting submerged in this beautiful boiling liquid i'm kind of moving it around a little bit just to see where it's at in terms of texture indeed gourmet spicy is what i'm picking up dj gourmet spicy okay so i'm gonna pull it oh my god look at this egg right here okay i love the way that the egg set and is intact there's broth but not too much of it i know this is the color i want it's a fiery gourmet spicy red boom right there that's what i want i want to be able to pick it up so good it's such like a great vehicle for kimchi getting in your hair like this slurping i would pull the noodles for me definitely earlier than you think because again it's going to continue to cook in that broth you don't really need need to do a lot this is like this is like a ripe fruit at its perfect temperature almost like the more simple for me that's the better experience sometimes what i'll do is eat all the noodles save the egg put the rice in here and then you have a egg rice gourmet spicy broth experience usually when i make instant ramen i will use the noodles as a shortcut to like a really flavorful noodle dish it's the ability to have that like that wonderful chew and that texture that i really go for and stay with me here but i thought like why not like use them as a way of making kachoi pepe i know that we've already reached peak cachio but i think these noodles and even the flavor packet like honestly i want to see like a little pinch of that in with that pecorino like butter and like black peppery like saucy mixture and that's part of the reason that i did the soy sauce flavor just something that's like pretty like neutral base but soy mommy salts i think all of it's gonna play pretty nicely together we're gonna blend up half this cheese now this is pecorino between parm and pecorino i generally prefer parmesan but pecorino is power it's like really funky it's really salty it's aggressive so next thing we're gonna do i'm just gonna do a little bit of salt in the water salt is gonna be an issue in this dish potentially at least because the pecorino is so high in salt and then any amount of the flavor packet there again like nice you know on a couple teaspoons of black peppercorn and we're gonna toast it just to kind of release some of those aromatics the oils in the peppercorn that's just arresting the toasting of the pepper and that's going to form the foundation of our sauce so now we take a little bit of butter and start working up an emulsion here it takes a little bit of work to do you need constant motion you don't just want the butter to melt at this point you can start working in some cheese i want to add enough pasta water to keep this pretty fluid if anything i'm going to keep it on the wet side because water water's being driven off as we're doing this all right while that is finishing coming together i'm going to drop the noodles in all right so it's starting to break apart gotta fight the tendency to want to like pluck them apart too soon i want to put a little bit of this soy sauce flavor packet in here i just want to taste this like as is with that little bit of flavor packet added doing like the crazy arms uh yeah it's fun so i just want to keep this a little bit on the saucy side just i want to make sure these fully come together and the noodle as it continues to cook a little bit is going to um going to pick up some of that moisture take a little more cheese you know it's a good time to make some adjustments you know we definitely kept the noodle a little bit on the more uh toothsome side but i think we're gonna be in good shape okay we're there i feel really good about this sauce is clinging scallion's just like that pop of freshness just like cutting through a touch more black pepper nobody needed to see that this is so good and you know what honestly as an eating experience it's like everything is in every single mouthful black pepper the pecorino and the soy working together yes is it an off-label use you know not exactly street legal i'll give you that but i think it's also super fun it's super delicious and we didn't have to do much to nudge it off in a completely different direction today i'm making instant ramen and i'm using kind of fresh instant ramen by sun noodles this is the pork flavor i love dried noodles too but when i want just something a little bit closer to what i would get in a restaurant i offer these so this way of ramen is my go-to i almost always have eggs garlic chili crisp it's important to me to just add some green to my ramen to make it a little bit more healthier for me and then some mushrooms to start i'm going to take my noodles to the stove and we're going to fry up upwork so i'm just going to heat up the pot and then dump this in there so you could use a nonstick pot that's fine but i want the pork to kind of crisp up a little bit more and i want that fond to develop at the bottom of the pot because fondant flavor you don't want to waste it and i'm going to use the same pot to make our broth so let it cook undisturbed for about three to four minutes and you can see it's already starting to kind of brown this is the longest part of making this ramen it's worth it it's honestly low effort for a lot of payout in terms of flavor and texture i think i'm ready to get this out of the pan fish this out i'm gonna go ahead and add my chopped garlic and some scallion i don't want to brown the garlic and scallions i just wanted to kind of warm through and lose that raw quality and then we're going to add this little kind of pasty situation it smells like it smells so flavorful it's super savory you know because it's the pork flavor you can really get that pork smell in there ready to add this in i'm going to add water and that is going to kind of help release all of that brown caramelization i'm going to let this come up to a gentle simmer and while that happens let's cook our noodles just make sure to spread them out otherwise they'll clump in jiggle them around a little bit texturally i like thin noodles in my ramen ooh look at how stretchy and bouncy they were you won't get this from the dried kind not cured this is red our noodles are done i'm going to use the same water to cook my greens we have yuchoy here super delicious chinese green similar to bok choy this doesn't need too long about a minute i'm gonna go to my broth for just a second i'm gonna add the soy sauce the soy sauce is gonna add obviously a little bit of saltiness and some um umami kind of depth of flavor i think the yuchoy is done this is definitely on the crunchier side but you do you cook it longer if you want it to be soft time to plate i'm ready you don't have a lot of time once your noodles are cooked because the longer they sit you know they're gonna start sticking together you don't want to let them get to that point so okay gonna top with some crunchy pork enoki mushrooms the uchoy right here this is a six to six and a half minute egg it's going to be super jammy inside the white is so properly set look at that okay and that is also going to make the broth even more creamier the yolk is going to get all mixed in so good scallion it up and then lots of chilli crisp i like a lot of it there she is ready to be sloped please enjoy my non-existent chopstick skills that's so good i can really taste the garlic and scallions and having the chewiness of the ramen and having some crunch with your vegetables is just so satisfying and comforting and um i know i ate something delicious and that makes me happy so everybody knows nissan top ramen this is like the bougie version of nissan ramen it is the soy sauce flavor i love it if you just wanted to throw this together in literally water it would still be really good but for me i like to really upgrade my ramen and give it a nice umami punch so the first thing i'm going to do here is just give this broth a little shake it's a little bit thicker than a normal stock so i think that adds value to this dish very well i also have some sauteed garlic and scallions it brings out the flavor and the aromatics really well we're gonna add some white miso it's just gonna elevate it and give it that ramen flavor that we all love i also have uh some red pepper flakes i like to sweat i like to just shovel the ramen in my mouth and have sweat beads down my face if you if you're not doing that you're not doing it right uh we've got a little more soy sauce and i also have some mirror in here as i'm a plant-based chef i love to integrate some of my favorite elements such as mushrooms my taki mushrooms go really well with this dish i have eaten brand nori here and all i'm gonna do is cut the nori into strips and i'm saving some for the end just to top the ramen all right so i'm just gonna allow my ramen to come to a rolling boil but i also have some really fun additions as well such as some yuba here which is dried tofu skins they kind of have a new umami flavor of their own that i can't quite describe but i wish you could smell it oh that smells damn good so and other ramen brands you'll usually have a dehydrated like spice packet inside uh but this one actually just came with soy sauce personally i think it makes for a very rich broth it imparts additional saltiness again i know it's very salty it's not like i eat ramen every night but i really like my ramen to be extremely salty in goes my noodles there's so many flavors in it you don't really need to let the broth simmer or cook for so very long and i think that's really special because most really great broths take time our noodles are almost ready i want them to have a nice bite to them at this time i'm going to add my favorite green my little baby bok choys and what i'm going to do is allow these to kind of cook into that broth for a little bit our yuba is rehydrated i just want to show you here it's like the dried ones they kind of cut into these spirally chunks so it adds a really nice textural chew to the dish you didn't see that i'm gonna remove my bok choy now our ramen is ready and we can remove it from the heat and get to plating i feel very good about these so we're just gonna dump that in gently oh that's beautiful already so the first thing i'm actually gonna do here is add my scotch bonnet pepper oil what i did is i threw like a cup of olive oil on the stovetop with about five pierced scotch bonnet peppers which are super super spicy so i'm just using this little dropper a little bit goes a long way like i added a lot but if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen next up some of these bok choy babies the egg always looks so beautiful in ramen so i'm really compensating here you know what i mean coming back with the nori sheets some seared maitake mushrooms these are a delicious add-in to any ramen it's all about the mushrooms every day all the time so i have some crispy fried shallots here i love having a crunchy element to every meal some fresh chopped scallion and we've got some for cocky seasoning it's just going to give a little punch to the top little more red pepper flakes mostly for the colourpop this is going to be spicy and absolutely delicious let's really get in there i can't even the noodles have the perfect texture a little bit chewy but not overly chewy and they're not falling apart and i'm still tasting the spice from the scotch bonnet oil on the back end and i slowly feel sweat beads forming on my head and that means i've done it right but the bok choid kind of brings you in brings you back to home base neutralizes all of those flavors and then you go in for some more so gotta say this is some damn see the fails happening this is some damn good ramen so this is a very specific ensen ramen this is from taiwan it's called weilitz which is whaley brand instant noodles with jajang flavors cha chiang is fried sauce it's like fermented bean paste sort of flavor so what's so special about this one is that it comes with soup what that means is it has a brick of noodle and two like different seasoning packet one is to flavor your noodles and another one is to make a bowl of soup with it most of these things i have on hand at all times so it's an easy way for me to like use my produce and also i love seaweed so much because it's dry so it never goes bad i'm the type of person because i cook so much for work i don't actually spend much time cooking for myself so what's important for me when it comes to instant noodle is that i want convenient i want something that comes together really fast first thing we have two cups of water measured out here i'm gonna open this up and take out the the flavoring packet this is the paste socket for the noodles just gonna squeeze it in here it's gonna really nicely cling onto the noodles once noodle is like cooked and hot we're gonna toss it in the sauce and in addition to the paste we're gonna add some raw garlic to it and now we wait for the water to boil boil water's boiling so this is a noodle block we're gonna add this to our boiling water and i want to try to start to loosen up the noodles a little bit as it cooks i like the noodles to be al dente just a little more on the chewier side sometimes the instructions are there for reasons just like that into this bowl now we're just gonna mix it together with the paste and the raw garlic and you wanna make sure the garlic is like evenly distributed so you won't have one bite with very pungent garlic now i'm gonna quickly blanch our bean sprouts for me when i'm having a ramen meal i feel guilty because it's like not the healthiest thing to have so i always like want to make sure i have some sort of fresh vegetable in it and this is my attempt of adding some fresh vegetable into my meal nutrition we're gonna add our soup packet which is all the seasoning you need in this soup it's entirely different flavor from the noodles dehydrated scallion and i'm sure there's some nice msg in there now we're gonna drop the egg in there nice and slowly and doing a little like circle so the eggs has some space to expand and cooked and once the eggs are set let's grab the seaweed and kind of break it apart this is also my attempt of adding vegetable into my meal well now our seaweed egg drop soup is done so we're gonna plate the noodles it's still nice and hot amazing next we're gonna put our bean sprout on the side and then a nice fried egg anything is good when it's topped with it we're gonna sprinkle some green onion and then we're gonna drizzle it with some nice toasted sesame oil final little touch i love this chili sauce it's from the restaurant 886. it's more of like adding flavor than adding heat which i like we're gonna pour this soup in here you can also garnish it with some scallion and a nice drop of sesame oil there you have it what i love about this is how cheap how little money and how fast everything comes together this is making me want beer just it's it has very rich flavor it's like fermented umami very very savory it has some ponchiness from the raw garlic that was like a part of the sauce i like to you know go like back and forth between the the two because this is like a brothelless noodle so it's nice to have a side of soup on the side but the flavor in this soup is i would say on the lighter side and this one it's richer so this soup complements it really well it's very satisfying very very comforting and it's kind of reminding me of home you know i used to eat it a lot as a college student you know it's a very cheap meal to make and you know nutrition-wise it's pretty balanced you got some carb you got some fat you got some protein vegetable spot-on you thought i liked raw noodles when i cooked it you could actually eat the whole thing raw i just put the spicy mix in here close it up here and you like bash it a little bit and then you kind of shake it up shake and bake then what you have is a crunchy gourmet spicy snack and you can just eat it like this\n"