Ramen

We're pretty much addicted to ramen. 

The problem is, our city is lacking a ramen restaurant (what we wouldn't give for a Ramen Isshin in town).  The only solution is to make our own delicious, noodle-y, flavourful soup.

We made the broth as I described in this post.  After straining it we seasoned it to taste with some splashes of fish sauce, soy sauce, a bit of sesame oil, salt and pepper.  We made sure that it was under-salted.  This is important, because we had a lot of broth and weren't going to be using it all for one meal.  You always want to leave your broth unsalted, or very lightly salted until you're going to use it, because when you bring it to a boil, it reduces, and could easily become over-salted.  We minced some of the fat and meat that was on the bones, and whisked that vigorously into the soup to give it that creamy, gorgeous texture everyone loves in a good ramen.  We also minced ginger and added that.

We used brown rice noodles for our soup, which only take three minutes to cook, and are vegan, as well as gluten-free.  They only have two ingredients, organic brown rice flour, and organic millet.  They are from Costco, and we thought they were great.  They were curly, just like ramen noodles should be, and had a good texture.

After straining the noodles, we put them into ramen bowls, and topped them with raw green onion.

We topped that with thin rare beef.  The broth will cook the meat more, so it's good to barely cook it before putting it into the bowls.

Next, we ladled the hot broth over top of everything.

And topped it with a very soft poached egg (sunny-side would work too).

I forgot to snap a picture before stirring my egg up a bit; I was too excited!  We topped it with sriracha, because sriracha is amazing.  You can also add more salt at this point if your broth wasn't salted enough before.

We cooled the rest of the broth and put that in the fridge.  Today, I brought it to a boil, and added red miso for a new flavour of broth.  This is why it's a good thing that I didn't salt all the broth a lot before, because boiling it would have condensed that saltiness, and also, I was adding miso, which is very salty itself.

This was another great bowl of ramen, for another rainy day.

So comforting.

It looks like the gloomy days are on their way out, as the weekend forecast is beautiful.  We're hiding away in our backyard all weekend - bliss.

What are you up to this weekend?  Do you have a good ramen restaurant in your city?  If so, please share - we'd love to know where to visit if we're ever near there.