The smell of hot and spicy broth encases the room and the taste of thin and chewy noodles fill your mouth with a wonderful texture. On a cold and rainy day, ramen is the best dish to eat because it’s just so warm and filling. Ramen is an Asian dish that can be cooked up instantly, and is a favorite among college students. It is also one of the most popular meals in Asia, as well as America, with the convenience of being both quick and delicious.
It’s easy to be fulfilled with a cup of noodles, especially during quarantine. But ramen packets only offer a certain number of options, and we all have our personal tastes. What if there was a way we could get crazy with our ramen by mixing and matching ingredients to make new creations, while also knowing that the product will be a success? Now we can. In the video “Which Celebrity Makes The Best Ramen?” Tasty producer Inga Lam tries out five ramen dishes using recipes concocted by celebrities to better fit their taste.
1. Tomato Beef Spicy Ramen by Chenle
Lam starts by introducing a recipe from Chenle, one of two Chinese members of the K-pop group NCT Dream. In his original recipe, he starts by bringing the water to a boil, like most other ramens. As he starts to boil the water, he adds in chopped tomatoes. He then crushes up the tomatoes and then adds Lao Gan Ma chili sauce. After the water is boiling hot, he adds the actual ramen seasoning and noodles. The ramen he uses is called Kang Shi Fu, a braised beef flavored ramen popular in China. After the noodles look fairly cooked, he adds some beaten eggs.
Lam describes the terrifyingly bright red color and intimidating spiciness as part of its appeal. At the end, Lam says how much she enjoyed being able to control the spiciness, which she thinks really enhances the flavor.
2. Decadent Chappagetti by Hwasa
The next creation is from another K-pop star, Hwasa, who is a member of the group Mamamoo. Hwasa enhances the flavor of a Korean classic ramen called Chappagetti — noodles with a black bean sauce and a variety of vegetables. Unlike most ramen, Chapagetti does not require a lot of water. The idea is for the noodles to absorb the sauce and create a pasta-like mixture. While the noodles condense into the sauce, Hwasa adds a good amount of truffle oil while the ramen is on the heat. After plating the dish, she also adds a raw egg yolk, which she mixes in before eating.
After tasting the dish, Lam mentions how she loves the fact that the noodles are smothered in the black bean sauce. Like Chenle’s recipe, she says she can see this dish at a restaurant and loves how Hwasa made the dish fancy in her own way.
3. “Cheesy Water” Ramen by David Chang
This dish comes from the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group, David Chang. For his recipe, he does not use any ramen seasoning packets — only the noodles. But before doing anything, he brings a pot of water to a boil and adds butter, olive oil, black pepper and a bunch of Pecorino Romano. Then he adds the noodles and like Chappagetti, he waits for the noodles to adsorb the “cheesy water.” He also recommends that any excess water be removed as you wait for the amount of water to decrease.
Chang tops off the ramen with some freshly cracked pepper. He describes the dish as “an Italian take on ramen” and upon tasting it, Lam expresses her surprise at how appetizing the dish actually is.
4. The Mark Meal by Mark Tuan
This one comes from Mark Tuan of K-pop group Got7. In the recipe, he combines a cup ramen called Shin Ramyun with an instant version of the Korean snack dubboki. He adds in sausages and tops it off with mozzarella cheese. This is similar to an already established dish, rappoki, which combines dubboki and ramen, but Tuan’s is slightly different.
Although he does admit that he isn’t the maker of this dish, he remarks how much he enjoys eating this treat and has definitely made the dish more popular. He loves making it because all the ingredients are things you can find at a Korean convenience store. Honestly, the spaghetti flavoring is the only big difference.
5. Creamy Ramen by Kylie Jenner
This last dish Lam introduces comes from American celebrity Kylie Jenner, and is also featured on Mashed. Neither the video nor the website says what kind of ramen seasoning Jenner uses, but it looked like chicken ramen when I saw the color of it. For Jenner’s recipe, she waits for the water to boil and then adds the seasoning and the noodles. After the noodles are loose enough to separate from each other, she adds a slice of butter, a dash or two of garlic powder and a scrambled egg.
Upon making the dish, Lam isn’t super pleased because it “smells very garlicky, very buttery” and it doesn’t really taste like ramen but more like “garlic, buttery noodles.” Nonetheless, Lam says it’s a great dish with its own unique twist.
Make Your Own
There are so many different ways we can upgrade the flavor of ramen dishes. Even without the examples above, we all can cook up our own ramen collaborations. For instance, sauces in broth like curry powder, fish sauce, vinegar or soy sauce can really elevate the flavor. And condiments like vegetables, eggs and meats can enhance the texture. Any of these additions would be a boost to your cup of ramen and will surely introduce a whole new way of looking at a simple cup of noodles.
