Pork Belly Street Ramen
Ramen noodle is my latest obsession, besides tacos, well, that’s another post, another day.
As usual, I had to put my own twist on it. I combined Chinese traditional Pork Belly stew and Ramen noodle, and tons of vegetables, the result? I couldn’t stop eating it!
Anyway, the main take-away here is, whatever your favorite food is, you can always make a street Ramen version of it, and make it healthy.
I made Chinese pork belly stew, simply because that’s one of the family top favorite. All the men in my household LOVE this dish. And of course, for ladies, I added tons of vegetables. All ingredients are laid out, plus bean sprouts in the bag.
I brought water to a boil and dumped Ramen from the bags into boiling water and immediately killed the heat. Lid on and soaked for about 3 minutes. I do not want to fully cook the Ramen and make it soggy, just want it soft enough and still a bit under cooked, because I have a bigger plan – I want my Ramen to fully cook in pork belly stew juices and soak up ALL the goodness flavors! Yep, genius, I know!
Stainless steel wok on high heat, oil in, 2 eggs cracked directly into wok, and stirred up with a spatula. I went in with all veggies at the same time and the sliced garlic. Order doesn’t matter much, since in my case, pretty much all vegetables I chose to use are quite hearty, nothing too delicate that needs to be separated. Well, except for bean sprouts, but that is ALWAYS the last thing going into the wok, after killing the heat.
I sprinkled salt and chicken bouillon on the vegetables and stir fried them for a couple of minutes until they are slightly softened. In goes the softened Ramen noodles. I used a large ladle, scooped pork belly stew with juices onto Ramen, oh yeah… just like that, don’t worry about getting too much juices, because there is still room in Ramen noodles to soak up more liquid, this is going to be amazing!
Use two spatulas if needed, stir the noodles and veggies and pork around, I pick up a bundle with 2 spatulas and put them to the other side of the wok and repeat, until the color of the pork stew juices is evenly distributed throughout the noodles, and everything is mixed up beautifully. Now, very important, taste for additional seasoning. I know my pork belly stew was perfect if I ate it like that, but because I used that as a flavoring for my Ramen and veggies, you never know if the flavor is still strong enough to flavor the whole wok of goodness. Add more soy sauce, oyster sauce and a splash of sesame oil if needed. Kill the heat and throw in the bean sprouts (to be honest with you, I forget it 50% of the time :p )
Dish up and enjoy, or eat straight out of the wok, I won’t judge!
