Miso Ramen

by LadyTong | Apr 13, 2014 | Food | 0 comments

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)

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!