How do you make cheap asian instant noodles without noodles?
So, I have been falling in loving with the yum yum instant noodles. And the reason might seem a little odd. I usually add a lot of extra water when making them, because I enjoy them as "a soup". that is I like the flavour and taste the seasings add to the boiling water, and I easily would eat them without the noodles.
Now the thing is, I don't wanna buy a package of them just for the seasonings and throw the noodles away.
To clarify, I am not necessarily interested in "recreating" the yum yum seasonings, but I was wondering how I could make such a soup myself in larger quantity without having to buy the noodles.
Best Answer
Trying not to interpret this as a recipe request, but a question about how to approach recipe mimicry.
Look at the ingredient list of flavourings you like. Try and sort them by function: six basic tastes (umami/sweet/sour/bitter/salty/fat), aromatics (spices, alliums of any kind, and other vegetables and vegetable extracts), textural modifiers (eg starches, emulsifiers), and stuff you do not need in a fresh recipe (preservatives etc.). Develop a recipe from there. Pay attention to oil vs water vs alcohol solubility of aromatic compounds.
or/and/also
Look at what dishes the seasoning is based on (eg japanese ramen broth+tare combinations, thai curry, chinese soups) - then look at recipes for these dishes, optionally cook some of them from scratch (you will be working with about a half to three dozen flavour defining ingredients, and get to know all shelves at your asian grocer's), to get an understand for the seasoning profiles.
Also learn about stock making - bone broths etc. if you want it meat based. If vegetarian, experiment with shiitake/kombu dashi, and fermented ingredients like all the varieties of soy sauce (hint: you want some thai/chinese light and/or gukganjang), gochujang, douchi, sufu, chinese pickles, kimchi....
BTW, you will arrive at a point where you make broths that are just too intense without noodles...
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