Ramen at Home, Quick and Easy

At some point in their lives, everyone eats Cup o' Noodles. They're so easy to make. Just pour boiling water into the styrofoam cup with it's nest of noodles and bits of dried vegetables, cover, and a minute later you have overly salted "soup" and mushy noodles. On a cold, drizzly day, that can be ok, but it's not a meal-of-choice. Ramen is a step up from Cup o' Noodles, but the same principle applies. Boiling water + instant noodles + "flavor packet" = soup and noodles with vegetables bits. Real ramen bears no resemblance to the packaged ramen in the market. In Japan, ramen restaurants are favorite neighorhood hangouts, usually with a counter and several tables. I've noticed that patrons in ramen restaurants don't do as much talking as they do in other kinds of restaurants. I think that's because the ramen is simply too delicious to want to talk.

People who love ramen get very obsessive about their noodles. The Official Ramen Homepage has hundreds of recipes for packaged ramen contributed by fans. Rickmond Wong is the ramen fan-extraordinaire. Profiled in the LA Times by Russ Parsons, Wong's web site rameniac.com gives a comprehensive survey of ramen restaurants in LA. Everyone has their favorite. Anne Lai sent me to Little Tokyo to try the ramen at Daikokuya (327 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles 90012, 212/626-1680).

A narrow passageway of a restaurant, Daikokuya is on the north side of 1st Street, half-way between San Pedro and Alameda. Of the half-dozen ramen restaurants on the block, only Daikokuya is packed with people at the tables and bar. Besides ramen, Daikokuya also has other traditional Japanese dishes: rice bowls, bento boxes, chicken teriyaki, mixed tempura, pork cutlet, sushi, and sashimi. But it's the ramen I came for, and while there are a dozen varieties to try, I wanted the specialty of the house: Daikoku Ramen, a large bowl of pork soup with noodles, fatty Kurobuta pork, a whole boiled egg, seasoned bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and green onions.

I took my place at the counter and watched the cooks drop baskets of noodles into the large pot of boiling water. The customer to my right, Jason, could tell I was a first-timer. He helpfully suggested I add some of the minced garlic and pickled ginger condiments to the soup. A good call.

All the ingredients are delicious, but it's the soup itself that makes the ramen at Daikokuya so memorable. If you've seen the Japanese comedy, Tampopo, you know how hard the shop keeper struggles to perfect her pork bone broth. She has to work from early in the morning until late in the evening to get the flavors just right.

I like to adapt restaurant techniques to cooking at home, but while I love the broth, that's too much work for me. I'll use homemade chicken stock instead. What I do take away from Daikokuyo is the realization that fresh ingredients can turn a lifeless package of noodles into a sumptuously refreshing meal.

At home, ramen is quick and easy to make as long as you have a good supply of homemade chicken stock in your freezer. For the dried ramen noodles, there are hundreds of brands, flavors, and varieties. Try to find one that has the least amount of chemicals in their ingredients' list. Health Food stores sometimes carry packages of organic ramen. Almost any of your favorite fresh vegetables and cooked meats will work.


Ramen at Home
Yield: 1 serving
Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients

1 package ramen
½ carrot, washed, peeled, cut into thin rounds
½ cup broccoli crowns, washed, sliced
1 shallot, peeled, thin sliced
2 Italian parsley sprigs, washed, use only the leaves, whole or chopped
½ cup shredded chicken, cooked
2 cups homemade chicken stock
1 teaspoon scallions, washed, sliced into rounds, green and white parts (optional)
1 hardboiled egg, sliced (optional)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Method

Follow the directions on the package to make the ramen noodles, then drain them and set aside. In a small pot, sauté the vegetables and chicken in the sesame oil until lightly browned, add the chicken stock and soy sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cooked noodles. Stir well and serve in a large bowl, topped with the scallions and the hardboiled egg if you want.

La Bruschetta Celebrates the End of the Writers' Strike with a Free Meal

La Bruschetta Ristorante, a West LA landmark, generously hosted a buffet lunch for members of the Writers' Guild. For 24 years, Angelo Peloni, the owner, has proudly served high-quality, affordable Italian food. Twenty years ago, at the end of the last writers' strike, he told his friend, George Kirgo, then the President of the WGA, that he wanted to make a meal for the writers to celebrate the conclusion of the strike. Today, he did it again.

In addition to the delicious meal, Angelo provided the opportunity to get together one more time, to remind us how much we all liked the community of writers we discovered on the picket line. With his lunch, Angelo was telling us that we should stay connected, and what better way than to do that than with a good meal.

We enjoyed a tasting from the menu. An Antipasto Misto Della Casa started the meal with an array of meats, marinated and fresh vegetables, and cheeses. On the buffet line, those taste treats were followed by 2 pastas (Pasta Farfella al Pesto and a Penne Bolognese); then a Vegetali Misti, steamed broccoli, carrots, and zucchini; and at the far corner of the long table, 2 meat dishes (Polpette di Carne, meatballs in tomato sauce, and Pollo Cacciatora). The meal ended with beautiful squares of Tiramisu.

There's nothing better than a good meal to stimulate conversation. To my thinking, the Italians are the best at doing that. They don't allow any one dish to dominate the meal. Progressing by differences, small portions lead through a series of flavors, textures, and sensations. Today, at La Bruschetta, that stimulation provoked conversation that was sometimes about the food ("Did you taste the grilled eggplant rolled around the goat cheese? And that roasted red pepper!"), but mostly the conversation was about our lives. What did we do during the strike? What are we doing now that things have returned to normal?

The center piece of the brunch was Angelo's pastas, the sauces perfectly balanced. In the interest of stimulating meal-time conversation, I'd like to contribute a pasta recipe of my own.

Ziti with Mushrooms and English Peas

1 shallot, peeled, finely chopped
½ cup English peas, shelled, washed
2 garlic cloves, peeled, julienned
4 mushrooms, brown or shiitake, washed, thin sliced
½ box De Cecco ziti
½ cup Italian parsley, washed, finely chopped
1 cup pasta water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sweet butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Parmesan or Romano cheese, freshly grated

A very simple pasta that is perfect as a second course, between a salad and a meat course, or as a side dish with a grilled chicken breast or steak. For my vegetarian friends, the sauce is made with pasta water, sweetened with a pat of butter.

Make the pasta first. Fill a large pot with water. Add 2 teaspoons of Kosher salt and bring to a boil. Add the ziti and stir well. Put a colander in the sink. Stir the pasta every couple of minutes. The pasta is done when it is firm but not too soft, probably after 10 minutes. Put a heat-proof measuring cup in the sink next to the colander. Empty the water and pasta into the colander, making sure you capture at least 1 cup of the salted, cooking water. Set the cup aside. Return the pasta to the pot, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon of butter, and season with a little freshly ground black pepper. Toss to mix well and lay a sheet of tin foil over the pot to keep warm. Set aside while you make the sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a sauté pan, over a medium flame, and lightly brown the garlic, shallot, mushrooms, and peas. Add 1 tablespoon butter and 1 cup of pasta water. Reduce on a medium flame until the liquid has begun to thicken. Add the pasta and the Italian parsley and toss to coat the pasta with the sauce.

Divide the pasta into 2 portions. Top with the freshly grated cheese. For ultra-fine grating, use a microplane grater.

Serves 2. Preparation Time: 10 minutes. Cooking Time: 20 minutes.

A Twofer: Roast Chicken with Fresh Rosemary & Chicken Stock to Use Later

Every home cook has one foolproof recipe. Mine is a roasted chicken with fresh rosemary. Easy to make and, with just one more step, the recipe produces a quart of homemade chicken stock.

Rubbing on olive oil and seasoning the outside with fresh rosemary, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper adds layers of flavor to the chicken as it roasts.

The chicken can be prepped ahead, trussed and seasoned, then wrapped in plastic wrap, put into a Ziploc bag, and either refrigerated or frozen. What I've learned with beef and chicken is that seasoned oil protects the meat from being effected by freezing.

Prepared this way, even the most ordinary supermarket chicken will taste good. Finding a better quality chicken will improve the flavors. Antibiotic-free chickens should always be preferred for health reasons, although I'm not entirely certain that you can taste the difference. In my experience there's no question that a Kosher chicken and free range, organic chickens do taste better. The meat is more tender, the flavor "cleaner." In Los Angeles, Trader Joe's carries several varieties of high quality chickens, as do upscale markets like Gelson's, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats. The best place to buy the freshest, healtiest chickens is at a local farmers' markets. In our neighborhood, Lily's Farm sells the freshest eggs and chickens at the Santa Monica and Palisades's Farmers' Markets. The prices for these chickens vary greatly: $1.29/lb at Ralph's to $3.75/lb for Lilly's. If you can afford it, you'll taste the difference.

Roast Chicken with Rosemary

1 whole chicken, 3 ½-4 ½ lbs., washed, pat dried
Fresh rosemary, a 2" sprig, washed, the leaves removed
2 cloves garlic, peeled, thinly julienned
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Line the bottom of a roasting pan with tin foil to help with clean up. Put a small rack on top of the tin foil. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

With kitchen twine, tie the legs together and the wings. Rub the olive oil all over the chicken, season with sea salt, black pepper, garlic, and the rosemary leaves. Put the chicken on the rack breast side down and put in the oven for 60 minutes.

Using tongs, turn the chicken over and return to the oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and check for doneness: the legs should move easily and the juices should run clear. If needed to make the skin crisp, roast a final 15 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes. If you're going to make a gravy, now's the time to transfer the pan drippings to a small sauce pan, add a pat of butter and 3 tablespoons of chicken stock and quickly reduce.

The chicken can be presented whole or cut apart so the pieces are easier to serve and can be served with a great many side dishes. A plain green salad with the chicken is perfect for a simple meal. Adding roasted vegetables, like potatoes, string beans, asparagus, or Brussels sprouts, makes a feast. If you want a gravy, that's easy enough, just make a simple reduction of the pan drippings, a pat of sweet butter, and a few tablespoons of chicken stock. Delicious.

Serves 4. Preparation Time: 15 minutes. Cooking Time: 2 hours.

Homemade Chicken Stock

To make the chicken stock, just gather up all the bones and put them into a large pot with 3 quarts of water. Simmer for 60 minutes. Strain out the bones and discard. Refrigerate the stock. In the morning, peel off the fat and discard. The stock will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days or, put into pint sized Ziploc bags, for several months in the freezer. Use the stock to make sauces or soups.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes. Cooking Time: 60 minutes.

A Vegetable Sauté for a Farmers' Market Lunch

After weeks of cloudy, cold weather, today was all blue skies and 70's-warm. The Santa Monica Farmers' Market had a selection of Southern California winter produce: sugar snap peas, English peas, carrots, broccoli, spinach, turnips, beets, Yukon potatoes, fingerlings, asparagus, artichokes, mushrooms, bok choy... Some days a simple vegetable sauté makes the best meal. Today that was our lunch.

Farmers' Market Fresh Vegetable Saute

Yield: 4 servings
Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 large carrots, peeled, cut into large rounds
1 lb sugar snap peas, washed, ends & strings removed
4 Yukon potatoes, washed, cut into chunks (not peeled)
10 brown mushrooms, washed, sliced
2 bunches asparagus, fat ones, washed, bottom end trimmed
4 garlic cloves, peeled, thin sliced
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup water or chicken stock
2 tablespoons sweet butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Sauté the potatoes and gralic in the olive oil on a medium flame until browned. Add the carrots, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, and asparagus. Cook for 5 minutes, turning frequently. Add stock or water and butter, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the cover, raise the heat, and reduce the liquid to coat the vegetables.

Save a Nickle, Save a Dime: Braised Beef Ribs with Vegetables

For me, shopping isn't fun if I don't get a bargain. My grandmother taught me well, "Never pay retail. If you want to be a good shopper, you have to pay less than other people and still get as good." In our neighborhood, Gelson's is the quality supermarket, carrying a full line of antibiotic-free, naturally raised meats. Which is great, except that they're pricey. The trick is to buy the meat when its been reduced, when a rib steak that was originally priced at $18.99/lb, is discounted to $7.99/lb. Any meat that's been reduced is still fresh, but it needs to be cooked that day or frozen.

Yesterday I stopped by and it was like my birthday. There must have been a dozen packages of prime cuts of meat, all reduced. I couldn't possibly eat all that meat in one day. But no way was I going to walk away from those bargains.

I bought half a dozen packages and prepped them for freezing. Years ago, after much experimentation, I learned a cool trick: if meat is marinated in olive oil seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, wrapped in plastic wrap, and sealed in a Ziploc freezer bag, it will stay fresh for months without any loss of flavor. The olive oil appears to protect the meat from dehydration. The plastic wrap and Ziploc bag protects against freezer burn. Our older son, Frank, likes this system alot, since this way I can load up his freezer with plenty of steaks.

I wasn't going to freeze all the meat. I held back two packages of the beef rib bones. A simple braised dish, this is 1-pot cooking at its best. All you'll need is a covered Dutch oven or high-sided frying pan to make an entire meal, complete with meat and a variety of farm-fresh vegetables. The only special instruction is that it's a 2-day process. To get rid of the fat, the ribs have to be cooked one day and eaten on another day. By cooking the ribs ahead, this is a serve-anytime meal. Adding the vegetables at the very end, gives the dish a delicious, just-cooked presentation.

4 lbs. beef rib bones or short ribs, washed
5 cloves garlic, peeled, roughly chopped
2 medium onions, peeled, roughly chopped
3 medium Yukon potatoes, peeled, roughly chopped
3 broccoli crowns, washed, the florets cut apart
3 large carrots, peeled, cut into thick rounds
10 Brussels sprouts, trimmed, quartered
1 cup Italian parsley, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, cut into 1" lengths
6 brown mushrooms, washed, sliced
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
4 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sweet butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

In a Dutch oven or high-sided frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Brown the ribs on all sides, then remove, and discard the fat. Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the pan and brown 1 onion and 2 garlic cloves. Deglaze the pan with the water, add back the ribs, cover, and put into a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove the pan, turn over the ribs, and bake for another hour. Check the ribs. The meat should be tender and almost falling off the bone. If you're using short ribs, you may need to increase the cooking time another hour and you may have to add another cup of liquid.

Put the ribs into one container. Strain out the onions and garlic and discard. Put the braising liquid into a second container and refrigerate.

The next day, peel the thick layer of fat off the braising liquid and discard. In the same pan you used the day before, heat the olive oil and butter. Brown the potatoes, mushrooms, and onions, then add the ribs and the braising liquid. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, broccoli, parsley, garlic, and Brussels sprouts. Cover and simmer another 15 minutes.

Serve the ribs in bowls with plenty of vegetables, the braising liquid, and a nice piece of baguette.

Serves 4. Preparation Time: 30 minutes. Cooking Time (over 2 days): 2 hours 40 minutes.

Chicken with Rice and Beans from a Restaurant Turns into Homemade Soup

Figuring out what your kids want to eat can be a challenge. Our son, Michael, has gone through a lot of food-phases. When he was little, he became a vegetarian after he saw Babe. A few years later at his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary dinner, he announced that he was going to eat a hamburger to celebrate their marriage. Now he's the starting quarterback on the high school football team, so he's on a training regimen. He stays away from fats and prefers to eat whole grains. We don't always know what to cook for him, and fast-food is a big no-no. Luckily a staple for him is the roast chicken from an LA landmark, the Cuban restaurant Versailles. The chicken comes with fried plantains, rice, and black beans. Michael likes it all, except for the beans. Which is ok with me, because I use them to make a black bean and vegetable soup.

I love getting another meal out of left-overs. From Michael's take-out, I use the roast chicken bones to make stock. He doesn't eat all the rice, so I have some for the soup. As is traditional with many Cuban dishes, a mound of raw, sliced onions comes on top of the chicken. Needless to say, he doesn't eat any of the onions, so they're all for me.

The result is a delicious soup, with latin-flavors and a healthy, clean taste. I like to add bacon or sausage, but if you're a vegetarian, like my friends Marjorie and Grace, don't add the bacon and use water instead of the chicken stock. If you're making the soup with ingredients from the market, you can use the black beans made by any of the Latin brands like Goya. (Just a side note, the best black beans I've ever eaten were ones I had in Costa Rica where my parents lived for 20 years. Unbelievably delicious.)

Black Bean and Vegetable Soup

½ cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1 ½ cups black beans, cooked
1 piece of bacon, finely chopped
¼ cup finely chopped carrots
¼ cup finely chopped broccoli stems, peeled
½ cup finely chopped Italian parsley
½ cup cooked long grain rice
2 cups homemade chicken stock
1 teaspoon olive oil
Sour cream (optional)
Homemade croutons (optional)

In a saucepan, sauté the onions, bacon, garlic, carrots, and broccoli in olive oil until lightly browned. Add the beans, rice, and chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve in a bowl and top with croutons or sour cream.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes. Cooking Time: 20 minutes.

Dim Sum at Din Tai Fung and Ginger Chicken with Sushi Rice at Home

Today started out as a really bad day. I had an important business meeting, but it...canceled. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch, but he...rescheduled. A day that looked incredibly full was now...completely empty.

I checked the TiVo in the bedroom and watched the Chocolate Battle on Iron Chef America (Bobby Flay v. Graham Bowles). Since I had nothing better to do, it seemed as if it was time to finally clean off my desk. That's when I found a review I'd cut out from the Los Angeles Times by Susan LaTempa about Din Tai Fung, in Arcadia. She made their dumplings sound amazing, but Arcadia?

That's miles away from where we live. Besides which, how accurate a review is depends on the taste of the writer. I hadn't read her reviews before, so she was an unknown quantity. But I love dumplings and, if they were as good as she said they were, maybe it was worth the drive.

From where we live near the beach in Pacific Palisades, Arcadia is on the far, eastern edge of LA, a good 40+ miles by freeway, taking me east across the LA Basin, north through Downtown, then across Pasadena, and finally east again into the San Gabriel Valley.

The review had predicted there'd be a long line out in front. She was certainly accurate about that. I joined the queue and waited 45 minutes before I got a table. With some friendly advice from the waitress and guided by the review, I spent the next hour enjoying the highlights of the menu: a mound of sautéed garlic-string beans, 10 pork/crab dim dumplings, a large steamer filled with pork shumai topped with whole shrimp, and stir fried noodles with shrimp and spinach. One of the condiments that came with the lunch was a small bowl of finely shredded fresh ginger. Adding soy sauce into the bowl with the ginger made a dipping sauce that added the right amount of edge to the sweet dumplings.

Susan LaTempa's review accurately reported about the special qualities of dishes like the pork/crab dumplings: usually a Chinese dumpling has a stuffing of meat and some vegetables, but here the dumplings had an added "spoonful of fragrant broth in each".

Happily, the meal put me in a very different frame of mind. More than an enjoyable lunch, Din Tai Fung's dumplings made me want to go home and cook. The julienned ginger and soy sauce combination had given me an idea.

Passing through Downtown, I made a quick stop in Chinatown to pick up ingredients. An odd fact about Chinatown is that virtually all the large Chinese supermarkets are gone. What's left are mom-and-pop style stores like the Far East Supermarket at 758 new High Street. Although small, the market has a good collection of Chinese vegetables, fresh fish, and meats. I decided on deboned chicken legs, a nice piece of fresh ginger, baby bok choy, and some shiitake mushrooms.

Ginger Chicken with Italian Sausage and Bok Choy

You can use breast meat, but dark meat holds up better and won't dry out as easily. Asian markets sell deboned leg meat very inexpensively. If you're buying chicken legs from the local supermarket, cutting the meat off the bone isn't difficult. Combining the chicken and Italian sausage with the ginger and soy sauce puts an edge on the sweet and savory meats. You can serve plain, steamed rice, but using sushi rice adds another layer of tartness. The generous amount of broth holds all the flavors together.

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 60 minutes.

Ingredients

2 pounds deboned, skinned, chicken leg meat, washed, cut into 1" pieces
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1" piece of ginger, peeled, julienned
2 Italian sweet sausages, cut into 1" rounds
1 bunch baby bok choy, ends trimmed, quartered length-wise
6 shiitake mushrooms, washed, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cups Japanese rice
2 ½ cups water
2 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

In a wok or chef's pan, brown the sausage rounds in the olive oil then remove, drain on a paper towel, and set aside. Sauté the chicken meat, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, and garlic until lightly browned. Add the chicken stock, soy sauce, and the sausage. Simmer for 20 minutes, then add the bok choy, lightly cover with a sheet of tin foil, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Making the rice: I have to confess I have used a rice cooker for so many years, I couldn't begin to tell you how to make Japanese rice without it. With the rice cooker, add the rice and water, cover, push the button, wait for the button to pop up, use chop sticks to fluff the rice, put the cover back on, and leave alone for 5 minutes. Put the cooked rice into a large metal bowl, add the Japanese rice vinegar and sugar and toss well. Cover the rice to keep it hot.

Put a large spoonful of the sushi rice in the middle of a bowl. Ladle the chicken, sausage, and bok choy with plenty of liquid over the rice.