During this weeklong world tour of food, we tasted a lot of things we had never had or even heard of before. We got to sample some of the flavors from the other side of the world from the people who brought them here, and it was an overall enlightening and fulfilling experience.
But by the end of the week, we were left yearning for something a little bit more involved. Since we spent the week eating things other people made and prepared for us, we decided to go out on a limb and try our hand at making an international dish of our own for this Go Try It.
Not having had a whole lot of experience with Asian or African or Middle Eastern cooking (or any other kind, for that matter) before, we wanted to try to keep things simple. The solution? Ramen.
Ramen is a Japanese soup (though some claim the dish originated in China) that’s popular throughout much of Asia – and also virtually every college campus in America. We have always been quite familiar with ramen – we practically majored in it – but only the microwavable kind.
To make our own from scratch, we went to Concord Mart, the little international grocery store on North Main Street across the street from Friendly’s. This place has a surprisingly large selection of Asian and Indian grocery items, notably seasonings and spices as well as some fresh produce.
Owner Dhruba Shrestha is from Nepal, and he knows a thing or two about homemade ramen – he used to make it all the time, he said. We figured he’d be a good guy to get some tips from.
For the broth, he recommended a box of chow mein masala seasoning, which has things like tumeric and coriander in it. For veggies, Shrestha set us up with some garlic, ginger, tomato, onion and green chiles. For noodles, we grabbed a bag that said “Dried Noodle” on the package, which contained about a dozen lime-sized rolls of dried noodles.
Shrestha also gave us some cooking pointers. Cook the noodles in a pot by themselves, he said, and make the broth in another pot. He also recommended leaving the green chiles out of the pot on the stove – the soup can become way too spicy if the peppers are cooked with it. He said to use about half of a red onion and just a little bit of ginger, as well as a couple teaspoons of seasoning, so that’s what we did.
At home, we threw the noodles in a pot of water and started chopping up the veggies. In a few minutes we had a two-pot cook going on, with the broth pot taking on a brownish hue due to the masala seasoning.
The noodles only took a couple minutes to cook, and after about 10 minutes, we were ready to take the broth off the stove and combine everything into a bowl. Once poured into a bowl, we added the thinly sliced green chiles – we used two – and dug in.
The soup tasted a lot different from the microwave kind we were used to. It actually felt fresh and borderline healthy. It also lacked the pounds of salt that usually accompanies the instant stuff. But it also lacked a key ingredient: meat. It was all our fault, but we totally failed to think about adding a meat until it was way too late.
In the end, though, we made a tasty, if terrifyingly spicy little meal. Stop into an international market, stock up and try making your own.
