Photo Project: Nicholas’s Recipe Book - An ongoing project of adding photos of dishes I cook all the time to my recipe catalog.
She had a simple request.
“Ramen, with bacon.”
And while I was beat from a long day, we all know I could never really keep it just that simple.
A trip to Cherry Grove Farm for the finest, smokiest bacon, and Maruichi Princeton for all my nippon provisions, and I was set.
I still haven’t gotten around to making ramen 100% from scratch, but one doesn’t always need to with just wonderful options around. Especially when you’re tired and beat.
This time around, we went with Myojo Nooldles’ Garlic Miso, which was a new flavor for us to try, and it was excellent.
Bacon was semi-slow baked in the Breville smart oven air fryer thing for about 30 minutes at 300f. Regina’s slice was a little juicer than mine, because I foolishly left my slice in while finishing up her bowl and moving on to mine (pictured). I drizzled the rendered bacon fat over the top of each bowl.
Broth was my house chicken-veg stock simmered with a nice strip of Kombu and some dried shiitakes. I would have added katusbushi, but turns out I didn’t have any. Looks like I’ll be going back to Maruichi soon.
I saw a jar of menma at the store and grabbed, only to discover later that I actually picked up pickled turnips (Momoya Zasai), which turned out to be absolutely fantastic, and will be topping many of bowl of ramen to come.
I hadn’t planned on adding the spinach or mushrooms when I first started cooking, but as you well know by now, I always manage to find flow once I begin cooking, and I get whipped up in a frenzy. So I sautéed a shiitake in mushrooms and whilted the spinach in a bit of sesame oil.
Regina told me I didn’t need to add an egg (almost always required when we make ramen, but we left it off this time to save a little effort and because Regina wouldn’t likely finish her bowl anyway, what with a little creature in her belly smashing her stomach), so I left it off. But later while eating the bowl, she said “but is it really ramen with no egg?”
These are the great mysteries of life to ponder.
Photo kit used:
Profoto B10+
OCF Grid 20º
Profoto Connect Trigger
Manfrotto Air Cushioned Light Stand
Canon 6D
Canon 50mm f1.8
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