Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Vegetarian Ramen


Haven't seen the D and I for a while. We missed them. Time to get together for a meal. As usual, the man was in charge of deciding the menu. Vegetarian ramen. Woohoo. It's not easy finding a bowl of vegetarian ramen in Singapore. The issue lies with the stock. Ramen is fast food. Few eateries would want to do a separate broth. If there's a vegetarian ramen on the menu, it's usually dry, which is offered by Ippudo and Uma Uma.

Had loads of fun marinating the eggs in soy to make shoyu tamago. Easily done. Love those soft-centre eggs. It wasn't difficult doing this meal. The man loves to cook. It's a pleasure cooking for friends. We've just been running on too-crazy schedules to find a pocket of time to cook for the friends. Since this was an Asian meal Japanese style, we also made appetizers of pidan tofu (a paste of century egg drizzled over tofu) and potato salad. Not like we have magic recipes. Did the usual online homework and picked a few to use. #impieCooks2015

Left: Pidan tofu ; Right: Potato salad.

Roasting the vegetables, making miso paste and all that were no sweat. The toughest part was creating the stock and giving it body. Mushrooms. A variety of mushrooms and sweet potatoes did the trick. Made an infusion of scallion and mushroom oil as well. Boiled up all the necessary sauces. We prefer doing that to using ready-made bottled sauces. Had to repeatedly remind ourselves not to bonito-flake everything. It's almost instinctive to simply sprinkle bonito flakes all over. We threw the can of bonito flakes into the back of the cupboard where we wouldn't absentmindedly use it.

The vegetarian ramen was topped with charred eggplants, roasted sweet potatoes and mushrooms. The shiitake-soy tare (dipping sauce or for basting) and miso paste were plonked into the bottom of the bowl, meant to be stirred. Whoever wanted a bit more oomph and salt could add another dollop of miso paste later. I think the friends liked it. Well, we almost killed them with a ton of noodles, but the broth was mostly finished. Woohoo.


It wasn't exactly a Fourth of July meal. Kinda. But not quite. Although we've so many links to USA in many aspects, and by that I don't mean just having firm friends in the country or anything to do with any sort of political aspirations. To the occasion of Happy Fourth, we swigged American pale ales. Courtesy of Singapore's NDP rehearsals, we had fireworks too. Hurhurhur.

The meal wasn't allowed to end without giant bites of D's summer galette specially made for the dinner. Blackberries and blueberries. With less sugar of course. It was tangy and chunky-yummy. Ahhhh. Her desserts are the best. The silly friends went home and left us googling for 'The Wizard' and watching it. DOHHHH. It was a 1989 film. We thought they made it up! Hahaha. How did such a film escaped our notice??? Well, I wouldn't have known since I wasn't allowed any tv at all. But the man is such a film buff that he even knows the corny childhood ones. Ha. But he didn't know 'The Wizard'.

6 comments:

jo said...

I'm salivating at the generous topping of shrooms and the gorgeous yolky centre :D An amazing amount of effort went into the making of it and the broth sure looks hearty! It'd be hard to rival this when #impiecooks2016 heehee.

coboypb said...

You and D have inspired me to try making broth, shoyu tamago and fruit galette one day :)

imp said...

jo:'Eioooow! 2016. Not going there yet. As it is, I've so little time to properly cook this year. Oof.

coboypb: broth requires roasted vegetables for depth and thickness. Then miso everything. Woohoo. If you don't like ramen, fill it with udon or soba. They work too.

coboypb said...

Thanks for the roasting tip. The broth sounds good on its own too. Yum yum.

D said...

TV series actually :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090547/
And liked??? Try LOVED.

imp said...

D: :)))

I only saw one small part then! Haven't gotten past their hair. Hahahaha.