The Art of Ramen

I love ramen. I can't count the number of times I've uttered those words on this blog. But it's true. Ever since I was a little kid, I've considered ramen noodles my very favorite food. You can whip up the fanciest, gourmet vegan meal in the world, but it will never be better than soft, fried wheat noodles simmered in a salty, garlicky broth.

It wasn't until watching my now-favorite movie Ramen Girl with the late, great Brittany Murphy that I realized cooking ramen was considered an art form in Japan. There's even a ramen museum in Yokohama. Some day, I will make a pilgrimage.

Out of sheer laziness, I mostly eat instant ramen. But all I needed was a little push to try making my own broth. And that came from one of my favorite bloggers, Annie Shannon of Meet the Shannons. When I saw her post on Vegan Garlic Chicken Ramen with a Vegan Hard Boiled Egg, I knew that soup had to be mine:

Here's the recipe. I made it tonight, and it really does taste worlds better than the instant stuff. The broth is made with vegan chicken-style bouillon powder, soy sauce, garlic, a little lime juice, and rice wine vinegar. I bought plain ramen-style noodles at my neighborhood Asian market, and as the recipe suggests, I loaded the soup with baby corn, water chesnuts, carrots, pea pods, and Morningstar Farms chicken strips.

But the coolest part is the tofu egg! After watching Ramen Girl, I started doing research on traditional ways to make ramen, and I remember seeing photos of hard boiled eggs atop noodle bowls. Now I can do that too! The tofu egg is stuffed with mashed tofu that's been seasoned with cumin, nutritional yeast, and other spices. It was fun to break it up with chopsticks when I was eating!

And now I'll leave you with a poem I wrote about ramen in 1997 (when I was a senior in high school!) from my zine Frenzy. I stumbled across it the other day when looking through a binder of my old zines that I used to type, print, and hand out to the kids at school:

My Ode to Ramen Noodles

Long, graceful
Swirling
Out of your
Rectangular
Block as the
Water boils you
To deliciousness.
Mixing in the
Packet of flavor
Your tan becomes
Darker
And Spicy.