Zen Ramen

This recipe's inspired by watching an episode of Japan Hour. It's really simple to do, really cheap to make, although it takes some time to prepare because it's best used with home-made stock. It's Zen because it's so simple - just stock and noodles, and what you use as toppings is really up to your preference.



Zen Ramen
Pork bone - Use one for a litre of water, or two for up to three litres of water. Get your butcher to split the bone open, too, so that all the flavour comes out.
Egg noodles - or use instant noodles if you don't want the hassle.
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
pepper
salt
Pork cutlet
Breadcrumbs
Spring onions, chopped.

1. THE STOCK: Is the most important part to this recipe. None of that msg nonsense, if you want to do this right, you get a big pot of water, throw in the bones, a dash of salt and pepper, and simmer for at least two hours. This picture was taken at two and a half hours, but I only actually cooked the Zen Ramen at 4 hours. The liquid should turn murky white. Top up with water where necessary.



2. After that, it's real easy. Measure out the amount of soup you need and use it to cook your noodles. Meanwhile, add the soy sauce and sesame oil into your empty bowl. Pour everything - noodles and soup - into the bowl and let the flavours infuse.

3. Place your toppings. I fried a breadcrumbed piece of de-boned pork chop and then sliced it a la tonkatsu. Top it all off with a generous handful of chopped spring onions. The spring onions really make a difference.

4. The soup can be kept in the fridge for up to three days. After the first spell in the fridge, you can skimm the solidified fat from the surface of the stock.

5. Other toppings you can consider: egg (crack an egg while the soup is still boiling, turn off the heat and let it slowly cook); fried onions; sliced lettuce, seaweed.


ohmmmmmmm.......

Tags: Japanese pork stock ramen soup budget recipe

still onna budget....

but no longer a student. Hi everyone, I'm Noel and I started this site the beginning of last year (Jan 2005) to blog about my cooking experiences while studying in Melbourne. The premise, of course, is that eating out is indeed very expensive, and that by spending some time in the markets you can pick out stuff that would be both tasty and nutritious that you could make at home, and most importantly - was a lot cheaper than what you could get from you average $8-a-meal outside.

Since then, I've graduated from school and I'm back in Singapore, working. And cooking with a totally new paradigm. To my amazement, it's actually cheaper to eat OUT rather than cook in back home! Needless to say, it's been plenty hard to try and come up with really cool recipes while trying to keep within a budget. These days, I usually rotate between eating out one week and cooking a packed lunch the next (usually using recipes that I find on this site. I eat what I post!). The flip side about eatng out is, a lot of food out there is really unhealthy, and so i'm trying to be a bit more health conscious when preparing my meals - making sure that there's at least a balance of carbs, meat and veges.

So, stay tuned. I hope to upload more recipes in time to come - particularly when i get inspiration to cook something that's not already featured here. If you've got a recipe and you want to share it, send us an email on studentsonnabudget [at] gmail [dot] com.

May's Happy Gula Melaka Agar-Agar

Oh yummy!

Yes, I'm back!

After a super tiring final semester I'm starting to do serious cooking once again! Yay!

So yes, I thought it'd be nice to start off again with a simple recipe.

I love gula melaka. I mean, which Malaysian/Singaporean doesn't? And amazingly, we can actually get good quality gula Melaka here in Melbourne at good Asian grocery stores.

Vat you need:

One block of Gula Melaka/palm sugar (tip: buy the gula melaka made in Indonesia)
A few pandan leaves
1-2 packets of agar-agar powder, Swallow brand. Try to get the original flavour.
200 ml of coconut milk

How now brown cow?

1. Follow instructions on the agar-agar packet. Use about 700-900 ml (depending on how erm, hard you want your agar-agar to be) of water to dissolve the agar-agar powder.

2. Once the powder dissolves, throw in the whole block to gula melaka. If you've used just 1 packet of agar-agar powder, only use half the block of gula melaka, less you want to die of a diabetic attack.

3. Under a very low fire, stand by your little pot and dissolve the sugar. This may take a while. Be patient and talk to your agar-agar.

4. While dissolving the gula melaka, take about 4-5 pandan leaves and knot it. Chuck it into the agar-agar mixture. This gives out wonderful aroma.

5. Once the gula melaka is dissolved and the mixture is at a boiling point, mix in 200 ml of coconut milk. Do not stop stirring.

6. Bring the mixture to boil.

7. At this point your home would smell of nothing but gula melaka. Heaven. Remove pandan leaves and pour out mixture into trays. Remove some of the coconut froth. Leave aside until cool.

8. Place agar-agar into fridge. Serve cold. Yum.

Tags: gula melaka palm sugar dessert agar agar jello budget recipe