instant noodle’s packets
A well designed packet has a place where it’s easier to open. Look for a notched or serrated edge to start opening with. Some types are just too tough and need to be cut open.
Archive for December, 2005
Kamaboko
Kamaboko is a Japanese word for fish cake made from white fish, pounded into a paste, mixed with a starch and molded into a variety of shapes. They are quite decorative when sliced, each kind displaying a unique color pattern. It’s often used in ramen noodle soup for its delicate taste and texture, as well as display.
Natural’s an anachronism.
So what is it that makes “natural” food labeling so appealing, good ole Mother Nature? Barbequed food results in “natural” chemicals from cooking that should be of health concerns…or maybe it’s about the way things used to be… Read the rest of this page »
So what’s in a name?
Canola is a trade name for a cultivar of rapeseed developed in Canada, it’s a contraction of “Canadian oil”. Prior to this name switch, the market for rapeseed oil plummeted after World War II, as its perceived uses were for marine and industrial lubricant. With a little genetic breeding to enhance its suitability for consumption and lot of name marketing, it’s now Canada’s leading vegetable oil.
While cultivars of rapeseed grown elsewhere are just as suitable for consumption, they can not be called Canola. That explains why it’s listed as rapeseed oil in ramen’s ingredients.
Quick Soup Filler
Ingredients:
- Package of Wonton Soup Flavor (Thin Noodle)
- Left-over soup
Hong Kong-style wonton soup noodles are very thin and cook in about 1 1/2 minutes. It makes an excellent soup filler for a quick dish. Soups that work best have a thin broth made with meat, poultry or seafood stock. Read the rest of this page »
trial by noodles
…if at first you don’t succeed, then dust yourself off and try again…Aaliyah lyric.
Spicy & Sour Noodle Soup w/Vegetable
Ingredients:
- Package of Bun Lau Thai Rice Vermicelli
- Fresh or frozen vegetable (broccoli)
- Optional luncheon meat (ham)
VIFON’s Bun Lau Thai Rice Vermicelli has a sharp spicy & sour taste that makes it suitable for adding any unseasoned cooked vegetables. Frozen sweet pea and corn kernel work well too. Read the rest of this page »
“N-Word”
Until recently, the FDA required a noodle to contains flour, water and eggs to be rightly called a noodle.
Since most Asian noodles aren’t made with eggs, this left them with alternatives like “imitation noodles,” Asian noodle producers - from the birthplace of the noodle no less - could not use the n-word. The government finally relented, and we can now see “Asian noodles” on packages.
Original Source: The Cook’s Thesarus - Asian Noodles
Black Bean Stir Fried Noodle
Ingredients:
- Package of Chajang Noodle
- Left-over stir fried vegetable with meat
Nong Shim Chajang (black bean paste) Noodle is mildly flavored which works well with other left-over dishes that is well-seasoned, making it into a slightly different dish with a thicker sauce. Read the rest of this page »
Real Ramen
“Real” ramen is a greasy, slurpy, splashy noodles and well-seasoned broth concortion found in crowded eateries all over Japan, and if you’re lucky - a good Japanese-style eateries near you!
Ramen is not exactly a health food, but it had inspired a whole nation to embrace it as a new national dish. Of course, not having these exquisite tasty cuisines, we settle for instant ramen.
In the U.S. market, most of the “real” tastes are left out in instant ramen due to consumer concerns with labelings. Anything authentic tasting are served in resturants only, like other fine rich foods. Read the rest of this page »
Hiyashi
Hiyashi (cold) japanese noodles popular in summer.
Package example: Myojo Chukazanmai - Hiyashi Sesame Flavor
XO Sauce
XO sauce popularity hits the Asian resturant scene first in Hong Kong’s pricier dinning estatblishment and was named after a popular brandy. It’s usually a combination of dried shrimp, dried scallops, garlic, and other seasonings. Its spicy flavor is used to enhance stir-fried meat, seafood, tofu and vegetable dishes. I remembered the flavor as a dipping sauce for Dim Sum, particularly for steamed Shrimp Dumpling (è¦é¤ƒ ha gao) wrapped in thin rice-flour skin.
Package example: Nissin - CQYD Bowl - XO Sauce Seafood
Wafu
A “wafu” cuisine is a Japanese-style fusion of food influences from aboard, particularly Western. It’s also a part of the Japanese fast foods trend.
Package example: Maruchan - Wafu Kinoko Yakisoba
Yakisoba
Yakisoba means stir fried style ramen. Soba noodles are made with buckwheat, but in this case it refers to ramen or wheat noodle due to the influence of Chinese ramen shops in Japan around the last century.
Package example: Sanyo - Otafuku Sauce Yakisoba
Ramyun
A Korean’s variant of the Japanese word for Ramen.
Package example: Nong Shim - Shin Ramyun
U-Dong
A Korean’s variant of the Japanese word for Udon.
Package example: Samyang - Pojangmacha U-Dong
Fats isn’t a four letter word.
It’s easy to let fats in food take the fall for people’s overweight health problems. In the meantime, despite the big shift towards low-fat food, America’s waistlines are actually worst off.
Let’s have another view than in the general media.
Which provide more energy, 100 calories of fat or 100 calories of sugar or carb? Pretty silly question, but that exactly my point. Some so-called experts seem to have us think otherwise… Read the rest of this page »
What’s in a taste?
The taste buds on our tongues can detect the presence of half a dozen or so basic tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter, salty, astringent, and umami, a taste discovered by Japanese researchers — a rich and full sense of deliciousness triggered by amino acids in foods such as meat, shellfish, mushrooms, seaweed and soy sauce.
It has also been said that the aroma of a food can be responsible for as much as 90 percent of its taste, i.e., “flavor” is primarily the smell of gases being released by the food you’ve just put in your mouth. Read the rest of this page »
Low-cal foods fad good?
From the same commercial-industrial complex that earlier pushed onto the public that margarines with trans fats were healthier than dairy butters, it has successfully turned the same but none the wiser public to the notion that low-cal processed foods are healthy in general.
There is a truth about food we can all pretty much agree on, if it isn’t tasty we will not eat it. So what’s wrong with low-cal processed foods? The flavorings, there’s no shortage of flavorings in low-cal foods…it’s just eating more salt and flavoring additives for a meal…you’re actually going to eat way too much salt for example before you eat enough real food for the day without getting anorexic!
Ignoring the deceptive nutrition labels, the “apparent” healthy portion is just bad without a restricted diet of it that is not followed. Read the rest of this page »
Enjoying Congee (Rice Porridge)
If there is one food most closely associated with breakfast for me while growing up is rice congee. It’s also enjoyed as a snack anytime, and fondly very late in the evening at special eatouts where it can be quickly served informally when nothing else is available.
So what does this have to do with instant noodles? … Read the rest of this page »
Pojangmacha
A pojangmacha is a wheeled Korean stall/cart serving food and drink set up on the city’s streets.
Click on this link pojangmacha for photos of the street food in Seuol.
Package example: Samyang - Pojangmacha U-Dong
Note: Probably an association with a popular style of food with pojangmacha vendors, i.e., denoted by adding a trademark square of kelp on top of the dish as an example.
Flexistentialism
What does this have to do with ramen? Eh…not much, but it got a part.
Found this blog posting to be a voyeuristic peek into our changing culture through the lives of the guys at flexistentialist.org doing beer tasting one day and ramen groupie watching a bizarre anime production the next…as in a Woody Allen’s script.
