Recipe: Speedy Ramen Noodles!

Ok, this is probably one of the easiest recipes for my speedy Ramen. A bonafide hit in our house for all ages. Succulent meat on a tangy soup with lashings of noodley goodness.

What you need:

Serves 2 - 3

Time: 15 mins

• Stock (made from 2 oxo or posh knorr pot, 2 pints water, 2 carrots, 1-2 leeks finely chopped, good finger of ginger chopped - all boiled for 15 minutes)
• Chicken breasts (1 per person)
• Sweetcorn (tinned)
• chilli (optional)
• lime
• coriander
• noodles (medium/thin egg noodles)
• pak choi (or spinach)

Method

1. Get the stock on the go as soon as you can. Throw everything in the pot and simmer for 10-15 minutes.
2. Whilst this is boiling, get the chicken on a griddle pan.
3. Brown with side then put foil over the pan with a splash of water just before (careful of the steam)
4. Whilst chicken cooking, boil noodles as per pack instructions (1.5 sheets per person)
5. Once noodles cooked, rinse thoroughly under cold water and put to side
6. When chicken cooked through, place on tray to rest (covered with foil)
7. Place pak choi on griddle (chopped in half) (if using spinach leaves, no cooking required - place washed leaves in bowl)
8. Once stock simmered, strain through sieve into new pan
9. Add noodles to stock to warm through over heat
10. Get bowls out
11. Add noodles to each bowl
12. Place in pak choi 
13. Sprinkle corn over
14. Ladel soup over til noodles covered
15. Place sliced chicken breast on top
16. Sprinkle coriander and chilli over
17. Place lime on each bowl for squeezing at the table

You are done! Enjoy!

Alcoholic Ginger Beer: Day 1 - The Brew Up

My appetite has been whetted recently by a renewed interest in homebrewing. Ok, not the coolest of home-pursuits but wholly rewarding. Not only do you get to concoct your own beverage and present to the unsuspecting friends/co-workers etc but you also get to design the label! Then i realised you can actually make alcoholic ginger beer (not the plant-inspired version i did as a kid) ... and with a potential 9.5% .... oh my god ....

Anyhow, i digress. I stumbled across 2 recipes online that looked easy peasy.

1. Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's Ginger Beer Recipe
Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's Ginger Beer Recipe

2. Dave's Ginger Beer

At first instance, Hugh's looked easiest but digging a little deeper, and looking for a challenge (and larger quanitites) i went with Dave's Ginger Beer.

The ingredients as follows:

5 gallons water
1-1 1/2 lbs. ginger root, coarsley chopped (PLUS extra 1/2 lb ginger root and 60g dried ginger)
17 cups sugar (i'm assuming american sizes here)
4 lemons, sliced
3/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 packet champagne yeast (i substituted this for Wine Yeast Compound and followed instructions)

Off we trotted to Tesco and got everything (it was a wet sunday, otherwise the cornershop fruitstore would have been first port of call). Yes, even the yeast. It seems that Culverhouse Cross has a section for homebrew stuff.

Keeping it simple for the first attempt - i've pretty much left the recipe unchanged other than adding about an extra half pound of ginger and also emptying a whole spice bottle of the dry stuff (just for an extra kick).

Process was pretty simple for getting going, a few tricky bits that weren't covered in the original recipe so i have modified and this is the process i'm going to do:

Process

1. Fill largest pan with boiling water (leaving inch and half from top)
2. Add ginger & cream of tartar
3. Squeeze lemons and then drop in squeezed bits too
4. Add sugar (i managed 9 1/2 cups) and allow to simmer for 30mins (i removed pips)
5. Add remaining sugar to sterilised fermenting bin (7 1/2 cups)
6. Carefully pour ginger mix through coarse strainer and then squish pulp with back of ladel
7. Top up with cold water to the 5 gallon mark and leave to lukewarm temperature
8. Taste (at this point, i wasn't happy so boiled up more ginger root and dried ginger and added back in to mix)
9. Add yeast as per pack (i used wine yeast compund - which meant a heaped teaspoon per gallon straight into the fermenting bin)
10. Check gravity (reading said it could be possible 9.5% alcohol - but we going to stop before completely fermented)
11. Cover and allow to ferment for 7 days (16 - 20 degrees)
12. Check gravity intermittently
13. Siphon into 2litre pop bottles (sterilised) - this will be done through a coffee filter for extra clarity
14. Add teaspoon of zest and finely grated ginger to each bottle
15. Cap and store upright for one week (15 - 17.5 degrees)
16. Release pressure daily
17. Then store under 15 degrees

A few photos:

Grating

The key ingredients

Lemons / ginger / cream of tartar / water / sugar

Fermentation bin after 2 hours

20 degrees

Will be updating once ready for bottling!