Week 9: Stir-Fried Ramen Noodles


Recipe Name: Stir-Fried Ramen Noodles



Ingredient: Ramen noodles, raw shrimp, mushroom, green beans, sesame oil, cooking oil, salt

Steps: (This is an original recipe)
1) Soften a bad of ramen noodles with hot water for 5 minutes. Decant the water. (If the noodles are still hard, heat water with microwave for 30-60 seconds.)

2) Peel off shrimp skins. Slice the mushroom.

3) Sautee green beans with oil and salt in a skillet. Remove beans from the skillet.
4) Add raw shrimp into the skillet and heat until the shrimp turns red. Add mushroom and stir fry for another 5 minutes. Add beans.

5) Add softened ramen noodles into the pan. Add sesame oil and salt for taste. Stir fry for 2 minutes.

Incorporation of technique (culture):
            This is a simplified noodle dish that is very prevalent in East Asian culture. I used to have these kinds of pan-fried noodles very often when I was still in China. It’s a bit difficult to get the exact type of noodles that I would have used if I cook this dish over there, but instant ramen noodles are one good alternative for this dish.

Reflection:
            This dish is a variation of the usual instant ramen noodle dish. Normally we would put the dry noodles in hot water and add the flavor packs into the hot water--this will give us a noodle soup. However, this dish today used the softened noodles for stir-frying. It was a bit tricky to soften the noodles as I didn't want the noodles to absorb too much water and become too soft and mushy. 5-10 minutes in hot tap water was sufficient for me to get to the desired noodle softness. The cooking process was rather straightforward. However, this dish did taste a little bland and dry. One possible way to improve this dish is to make some sauce that goes with stir-fried noodles in order to add flavor and moisture.


Comments