It’s been almost two years since my last post. Two years!!! When we moved from Nashville to Michigan in 2019, I had planned an epic return-to-my-Michigan-foods-roots post. Maybe beef pasties (which are meat pies – get your mind out of the gutter) or pierogis? Or paczki for my first Fat Tuesday back? Welp, that didn’t happen and here it is almost two years later and I’m letting myself off the “epic Michigan recipe post” hook.

The move was hard (ha – or so I thought) and we ended up moving twice because we didn’t buy a house in time to coincide with closing on our house in Nashville and beginning our new Michigan jobs. We eventually found an acceptable school district, diverse neighborhood, new house, transitional daycare, exceptional pre-school, and multiple grocery stores. I’m happy to say we have more than four acceptable grocery stores less than five miles from our house! The best reward, however, is that our family and friends began to fill the empty void we always felt while living in Nashville.

Then Covid hit and everything stopped. We might as well be living on planet Jupiter because that’s how heavy the isolation felt (still feels). I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone, it’s all just so hard. So the Epic-History-of-Michigan-recipes post has flown out of the snow covered window – at least for now. Instead, I’m sharing a recipe I’ve been working on over the past year that has received high marks from M and worked its way into our regular rotation.

I miss the Otaku ramen shop in Nashville and this is the best I can do to replicate it on the limited time I have while juggling virtual Kindergarten, zoom sales calls, Ozzie’s attempted nap times and self-care to make dinner. This soup is so warm and comforting, it can make you forget the outside raging pandemic even if it’s only for one brief slurp. (Remember, a loud ramen slurp is a compliment to the chef.) You must add the soy eggs, the creamy egg yolk mixed into the broth just makes it super rich and satisfying.

To make this even faster you can use rotisserie chicken or whatever leftover meat you have in the fridge. But if you want to roast a chicken, by all means, roast a chicken. We often have leftover spicy Italian sausage from our Friday night pizza parties and that can work too, just use beef broth instead of chicken broth. Ok, let’s do this! I did it, my first post as a Michigander again, good job, me!

Weeknight Chicken Ramen:

Serves 4

Time: 30-45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1″ knob of ginger, peeled and zested
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and zested
• 1/2 a white onion, peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup (1 stalk) celery, diced
• 1/2 cup (1-2 whole) carrots peeled and diced
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon chili sauce*
• 1 heaping tablespoon white miso paste
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons mirin
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms – your choice, baby bella or shiitake or button (if you use shiitake, remove the stems as they are inedible)
• 32 oz broth (your choice, chicken, beef, mushroom – whatever you want based on the protein you use)
• 2 cups cooked rotisserie chicken, diced (or sausage or firm tofu)
• 1 lime’s worth of juice
• Ramen noodles (I prefer this brand over other noodles I have tried: https://hakubaku.com.au/product/ramen/ – I have found them at Whole Foods and Meijer.)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup soy sauce, 2 tablespoons mirin

Method:

1. Zest 1″ of ginger and two garlic cloves. (Did you know you can easily peel ginger using the tip of a cereal spoon?)
2. Dice onion, celery, and carrots.
3. Heat one tablespoon of sesame oil and one tablespoon of butter in a soup pot on the stove. Add onion, celery and carrots into the oil and cook until softened.
4. Add chili paste.
5. Whisk 1 heaping tablespoon of white miso in one cup of hot water until dissolved, then add to the pot.
6. Add soy sauce, mirin and lime juice.
7. Add 32 ounces of chicken stock or broth.
8. Add chicken to the pot. Let simmer for 15 minutes.
9. While soup is simmering, make the soy eggs. Bring a pot of water to a boil and down to a simmer. Add eggs (with shells still intact) to water and simmer for 7 minutes. Remove promptly (8 minutes is too long!) and plunge into an ice water bath. Once cooled, peel them and place whole into a mixture of 1/2 cup of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons Mirin. Let marinate for at least 10 minutes or at most, overnight. To serve, slice in half and add egg as garnish to top of ramen bowl. The yolk should be jammy.
10. To serve, add noodles to bowl first. (With the Hakubaku noodles, We use one individual banded portion for two of us.) Ladle soup over top of the noodles then add garnishes.

Garnishes:

You can have so many different garnishes, and it’s nice to offer them all on a plate so people can add their own. I feel like my ramen bowl is pretty untraditional, mainly because I’m not making a soup base for 2 days and also because I love to put avocado in my chicken ramen bowl. Some other garnishes might include:

• if you like it hot, add more chili sauce, chili paste, or Sriracha
• bean sprouts
• toasted sesame seeds (black sesame seeds really stand out on the soy egg)
• ramen egg
• furikake**
• green onion
• raw carrot
• avocado slices
• chives
• toasted seaweed

*Note: Chili sauce/paste is spicy HOT, if you have an aversion to heat, you can leave it out.

**Note: Furikake (ふりかけ) is a nutty, crunchy, umami-packed Japanese blend used to season rice. Although it’s referred to as a rice seasoning, furikake is literally the salt and pepper of the Japanese kitchen. It is so versatile that you can use the seasoning to instantly perk up any bland dishes.