Halfway Homemade Beef Ramen

I’m not a personal fan of Sandra Lee’s Semi-homemade or of her outfits that match her kitchen décor but her POV is excellent. You may not have time to do things completely from scratch but you don’t want to settle for something that’s packaged and prepared. (And take-out from the usual places gets boring and expensive very quickly).

Take ramen for example: you could reminisce about your college days eating the dehydrated and sodium laden cup of noodles [JUST ADD WATER]. You could even be going through those days right now. As I’ve said before, I’m snobby about food. It’s a curse. I’ve never had a Cup of Noodles. Granted, I lived at home and commuted to school so there was never any need to buy cheap microwave meals.

Unless you have found a good restaurant that serves excellent ramen (tell me if you have because I’m searching), you will wind up buying the cheap stuff or going without.

Don’t go without! Halfway home make your ramen!

While it’s on my cooking to do list, I just haven’t had the time to make my own ramen broth from the bottom of the pot up.

Time saver – prepared stock. It’s going to be very standard though and lacking in Asian flare. What can you do about that? They don’t sell stock that way. Time to doctor it up. Here’s what I did:

Crock pot

32oz beef stock

2-3 cloves garlic

Tbsp. fish sauce

Tbsp. sambal oolek (or any brand of chile garlic paste)

Tbsp. soy sauce

1/3 c. sake or rice wine vinegar

Tsp salt

Tsp pepper

*1lb beef

Combine all the ingredients in your Crock pot and cook on high for 5 hours or on low for 8 hours. *Note about beef: I had some cuts of steak that were really tough – I kept them whole for the cooking process because I think it is traditional to cook the beef then serve slices of it with the ramen noodles and broth. You could easily use stew meat if you’re not concerned about the traditional aspects.

An hour or so before your ramen broth and meat is done in the crock pot, cook the noodles of your choice. I found fresh Chinese noodles which aren’t traditional of course but worked well. (About a 1lb of noodles).

Add shitake mushrooms, bok choy or baby bok choy, and scallions to the crock pot and allow them to stew for the remainder of the cooking time or until wilted and softened.

It’s also traditional to serve with a hardboiled egg…but I forgot to put them in the bowls when I served it for dinner! Shucks! Most of you probably wouldn’t miss the egg, but it does add an interesting texture to this Japanese comfort food.

I garnished with some fresh scallions and a swirl of Sriracha for extra heat. :) I enjoy the tingle :D

The egg and sriracha are missing... :(