Miso ramen with peas, corn, narutomaki and soft-boiled egg
This simple, easy-to-make with readily available Japanese-styled Miso Ramen is awesome for a rainy day or when you need to whip up something quick. In short, Miso ramen can go with anything you can dig up in your fridge, including leftovers, frozen goodies or simply by itself. It’s so popular and so easy, it can be classified as instant noodles in Asia where manufacturers have made it into the 5 minute meal with all packaged sauces and condiments. In this version, I’m still using packaged dashi (Japanese fish stock) and miso, but one day, I will make dashi from scratch! We also purposefully went to buy some Japanese-styled fish sticks, known as Narutokmaki, and some fancy looking “piggy” narutomaki. I love Japanese food (so does my whole family) and the Japanese culture, styling, food is highly prevalent in Hong Kong. To be honest with you, if I had to pick one cuisine which I had to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Japanese. And plus my kids all attended a Japanese International Kindergarten, they are/were highly influenced by their Japanese peers. You should see some of the award-winning Japanese lunch boxes that the Japanese moms prepare, they win hands down!
Soup Name: Miso Ramen
Traditional Chinese Name: 日本拉麵 (Rì běn lā miàn)
- 2 oz of fresh ramen
- 1/2 teaspoon [url href=”http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/dashi-japanese-fish-stock/”]dashi powder[/url]
- 1 tablespoon [url href=”http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/miso-paste/”]miso paste[/url]
- 1 [url href=”http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/chicken-eggs/”]fresh egg[/url]
- 1 tablespoon frozen or fresh peas
- 1/2 [url href=”http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/corn/”]fresh corn[/url], boiled and cut off the cob
- slices of [url href=”http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/narutomaki/”]narutomaki[/url]
- 3 pieces of sausages
- 3 cups of water
- In a pot, start boiling your water and add in the egg(s) while the water is still cold and the corn.
- Once the water starts boiling, add in the dashi and miso (to help also flavor the eggs and corn).
- Boil the eggs on medium heat for 8 minutes, remove and set aside to cool to peel later.
- Boil the corn for another 5 minutes, remove and let cool.
- Throw in the frozen peas, sausages, and the fresh ramen and boil for another 5 minutes (or until desirable tenderness).
- Remove ramen and put into a serving bowl.
- Scoop out peas and sausages and set aside.
- Add soy sauce to soup to desired saltiness (although with the amount of dashi and miso, to me, it’s sufficiently salty).
- Scoop desired amount of soup into serving bowl.
- Cut corn off the cob and serve on top of noodles.
- Rinse egg under cold water and gently remove the shell. Half the egg with a sharp knife. The middle should be soft and gorgeous!
- Place peas, sausages, narutomaki, corn on top and serve!
For my family, I made 4 portions, but the portioning of the toppings is really dependent on what people prefer. I am talking about custom-design Miso Ramen! For example, one child is crazy about green peas, so she pretty much ate them all! The other is crazy about narutomaki, so she also ate them all!
I boiled the corn in the miso and dashi soup at the beginning with the egg. This will help infuse flavor into the corn.
Shucked corn off the cob (boiled in miso soup for added flavor)
You can use either fresh or dried ramen. The fresh kind are pretty awesome though and can be bought at Japanese supermarkets in the cold sections.
Fresh ramen
For these types of noodles, the toppings can get as creative as your imagination.
You can use:
- Any types of veggies really (corn, peas, carrots, bak choy, choy sum, onion, green onions…)
- Any types of readily prepared meats (sausages, BBQ pork, sliced pork, ham, chicken strips, fish balls, beef balls…)
- Japanese styled narutomaki (they are really creative with the types of narutomaki available – see piggies below!)
You can use ANY toppings you want!
Here are some really cute and yummy narutomaki piggies! The Japanese kiddies bring these to school as is and eat them with cute toothpicks.
CUTE narutomaki piggies!
The final product for the children. We turned it into “buffet-styled-make-your-own-ramen” dinner – so basically laid out all the toppings and just gave the kids a bowl of soup with ramen and let them figure out the rest! It’s a great activity and they loved it! Plus, you hold them accountable in all the food they took.
Japanese miso ramen – for kids!