Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Instant Ramen

You guys are tasting Petrossian caviar,

and I'm going to eat some instant Ramen.

Good luck with that.

Thanks.

I'll let you know if we have extra.

Okay, save me some.

It's okay, I'm not bitter.

[upbeat music]

Oh.

Ugh.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, I missed the dough.

Hey everyone, I'm Claire.

We are in the BA test kitchen,

and today we are making gourmet instant ramen.

[drumming]

Brad is in Italy, right?

He's not here, okay, well I guess

I won't have any help making like my own

extortor anything like that, but that's okay.

Sometimes I wonder if it helps or hurts.

So instant ramen was definitely something

that my sisters and I would make for

as an after school snack, but it's been

a very long time since I had any of it.

I'm curious to taste it now and then figure out

where I can improve and make something

that still feels like it's true

to the instant ramen with the brick

and the little flavor packet,

but is hopefully a little better tasting.

I'm thinking about the different flavor options.

I immediately went to chicken

because that feels pretty classic.

Makes two eight ounce servings.

I definitely ate an entire thing myself.

That was not two servings.

Hilarious that it says two servings.

So you can see it looks like it's kind of

been folded over into this brick.

I definitely kind of get a whiff of that fried,

like kind of oil aroma.

The inside of the noodle is more of a bright white,

where as the outside is a little bit yellow.

And that might come from the frying process,

I'm not sure.

The experience of eating the noodles

verses like dried pasta are very different.

With dry pasta it's like so hard.

With these noodles, you can tell that they're fully cooked

because they kind of dissolve when you eat them.

Obviously this is like extremely concentrated.

A lot of salt in it.

Half of a block has 830 milligrams of sodium,

so then the whole thing is 70% of your daily salt intake.

It's very yellow.

So chickeny, sort of, not really.

Lots of that umami flavor.

It's what you taste in soy sauce or mushrooms,

like this very sort of savory flavor.

Essentially where I think I would go for this,

and to no one's surprise I would use a dehydrator.

Basically making a highly, highly concentrated chicken stock

and then dehydrate it and grind anything that's left

to a powder.

With the noodles, I think it's going to take

a little bit of research.

I'm going to go ahead and make them

according to the actual cooking directions.

Raw?

Really, oh my gosh.

These soften and hydrate in the water

and it becomes these curly, very bouncy noodles.

That'll be a really important thing.

I don't want the noodles just to turn into mush

when I add the boiling water.

Salty.

It's certainly not like a really clean tasting

chicken flavor.

It's a good food, I get it.

There is some elasticity still.

They don't just break apart.

So even in its curly form,

that's 16 inches in length.

But if I stretch it out even further,

it would be pushing 18 inches in length.

That's really long.

I think there's a lot of room to improve in the broth.

With the noodle, it's going to be more about

trying to match that texture.

Chris.

Yeah?

If you don't mind, please join me.

What do we have to maintain,

and what can we improve?

The wave is key.

Right, I could go for more chicken flavor.

Yes, should I fry it in schmaltz?

For chicken flavor.

Chicken flavor.

I'm sorry, I just remember.

It took me back.

The noodles, I want them to curl and tingle.

[Clair] Great.

Is this is going to be like a dry seasoning packet

that you're going to do?

Uh yeah.

Well we're going to try.

Like get all the umami in there.

I would want like a super umani in there.

Okay, thanks Delany.

Alright, my favorite part and a very informative step,

reading the ingredients.

Enriched flour, wheat flour, niacin, palm oil, salt.

Contains less than two percent of autolyzed yeast extract,

disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate.

I have no idea what that is.

Dried leek, garlic powder, egg, sugar,

TBHQ, and then in parenthesis, preservative.

Wheat, wow.

Who would have thought?

Conspicuously no msg.

Oh, do we have msg?

I'm definitely adding msg to my version.

And now I think would be a good time to go

to the computer and see what I can find about

particularly the noodle process.

The dry noodle block was originally created

by flash frying cooked noodles,

and this is still the main method used in Asian countries.

Where the air dried noodle blocks

are favored in western countries.

I still don't understand, what is an air fryer?

It looks like a big microwave.

It's like a way of crisping things

without deep frying.

That might be a possibility.

So there are three key ingredients in wheat based noodles.

Wheat flour, water, and salt.

The optimal amount of water is 30 to 38 percent

of flour weight, so this is gold.

This is great information.

Okay so there's something called kansui.

I hope I'm saying that right.

It's an alkaline solution consisting

of a nine to one ratio of sodium carbonate

to potassium carbonate.

To which contribute to the spingyness and chewiness

characteristic of ramen.

I don't know if we can get that,

but maybe we can make it.

To make it basic?

Rhoda had a great idea.

Try adding a little bit of a baking soda solution

to reduce the acidity, make it a little more basic.

Oh look at this one.

Amazing, okay.

That told me something.

So working the dough is one way to develop gluten.

This whole research process was very, very helpful.

Okay, so the plan is work on the noodle.

Try to get a shape and texture that I like.

And then tomorrow will be a day where I focus

on making that flavor packet.

And then hopefully putting them together tomorrow or Friday.

I'm a little bit concerned about getting that

wave in the noodle.

But that's like more cosmetic.

A bigger concern is just that the noodles

have the right texture and that they dehydrate properly

and then reconstitute without falling apart.

I have a vague idea of how to do everything,

it's just I'm sure there'll be lots of twists and turns

along the way.

[drumming]

I'm going to start with about 500 grams of bread flour.

And then I'm going to measure all the other ingredients

in proportion to the flour by weight.

Make a well in the center and dump in the water.

This is just so stiff and dry.

Maybe 30 to 38 percent hydration is too low

for like a homemade version.

I'm just going to keep adding a little bit of moisture.

Don't look over here, Chris.

Don't look at this.

Well I looked on the Internet and Wikipedia said

the doughs that they use to make the noodles

are between 30 and 38 percent hydration.

Turns out when trying to make them yourself

with King Arthur bread flour, it's like no where

near enough water.

It's so firm.

I've said for like five times, it's like the last time

I'm going to spritz it.

I think I just don't want to do this anymore.

It's loosened up, so finally I'm going to form it

into a ball, wrap in in some plastic and let it rest.

And I'll come back here and try to roll it out

in 20 minutes or so.

[drumming]

I have the hand crank pasta machine.

And Rhoda just showed me that attachment

that cuts strands, every ridge that represents

like the width of a noodle.

And it looks really close.

This has softened nicely actually.

So I'm goin to start to sheet the dough

and then use this attachment to cut them

into the thin noodles.

I'm going to go ahead and try to cut them.

Rhoda does it attach, it must attach here.

There must be a piece that attaches it.

So I think it attaches like this.

There's no piece, huh.

I think, oh, it just sits there while you feed it through.

There you go.

Please edit that out.

The dimensions of these I think look really good.

So I want to just cook these and test that texture,

if they have that sort of bouncy chewiness

that we're looking for.

Wow, first of all I undercooked them.

These are good.

But they have, see how they stretch?

So 13 seconds was not enough.

Let me try the full 30 this time.

They're like really good.

Do you have a plan for how you're going to?

The curl, no.

I do not.

I think I'm going to have to physically create the wave.

Maybe you could like put them over a little,

like a little closely ridged rack.

Yeah, a lot of people are saying stuff like this.

I don't think that anyone's fully thought it through.

So the idea is to take little groupings of noodles,

poke them through.

This is a terrible idea.

Yeah maybe some kind of poking device.

Oh no, that's not really going to work.

I think what I really need is something to set on top of it

that will thread them through.

Actually these are better.

But I want to at least set them side by side.

The idea is to fold this over and have it be

about the same shape.

I'm really, it took so long.

You got this, you got this.

That really helps.

Look how good you're doing, that's a good idea.

It's not really working.

Is there an easier way to do this?

I wish there was something that was like

this same shape, but the reverse that you could.

Well this is, I could, but like this bar gets in the way.

Oh I see what you're saying.

What am I saying?

Okay, okay.

I have an idea.

Okay, I need something flat, thin, long, and heavy

to press down on either side of these skewers.

I need like a soldering iron.

I want to cut off the ends of this rack

so that I can just weave the noodles in and out

of these spikes.

A soldering iron, is that right?

Hey Amiel.

Yep.

I want to cut off this edge.

Wire cutters.

Oh, this might work.

I feel like we're robbing a bank.

And then you just bend.

No, no, no, please be careful.

The most important thing is the noodles.

Yeah, thread them like so.

Oh wait.

How do I fold them though.

Wait you guys.

But I have to fold them.

I don't know how to do it.

Okay so what I want to do before I go home

is finish forming and weaving

all the cooked noodles that we did.

And then I'm going to leave them in the refrigerator

over night uncovered.

I don't want to dehydrate them fully

because I still want them to be somewhat pliable tomorrow

so that I can fold them into that brick.

And then tomorrow we're going to try forming them,

frying them, and then the real test,

which is soaking them and re-hydrating them.

Okay, you get the nice sunset in the background?

And it's very Chef's Table right?

[drumming]

I feel pretty good about yesterday,

minus the part where I kneaded pasta dough

for like one hour.

Actually my arms are a little sore.

So I want to check on the noodles

and see how those are.

They've gotten pretty dry.

I think I might still be able to fold them

into this kind of like brick shape.

So overall I think it's not too bad.

But I need to come up with a way to kind of

fit it into a mold that I can fry it in.

I need something basically square.

I liked my drying rack cage idea,

just bend the s-h-i-t out of it.

But we have those skinny ones, can we do it to those?

Or what if we just cut it in half,

and then you have two halves,

and you just put the two halves together.

Yeah.

As the cage.

Oh yeah.

I want to just rinse these off to get rid of

any parts of metal.

And then try to fit the noodles.

I want to just fry these until the bubbles kind of stop.

I apologize to the test kitchen for basically

destroying their supply of cooling racks.

Okay, obviously it took on a little too much color.

These noodles here in the center are still

a little bit soft.

It didn't fry evenly.

Wow, Claire, look at that.

Look what you've done!

Is this really going to like rehydrate?

I don't know, that's what we're going to find out.

I'm very worried.

It's like what's really happening.

[Amiel] It looks kind of like it's dissolving.

Yeah, it does.

Because if you just took the noodles

and like greased them up.

Oh no, it's not right, nope.

They're total mush.

Maybe cooking the noodles less on the front end.

I can try steaming them.

And then frying them at a lower temperature.

Oh, I need to talk to Brad.

They're mushy and like greasy.

Should I try air frying them, see what happens?

There's just the question of like

the noodle to begin with too.

You know the alkalizing of the noodles, it seems like.

Make it more alkali.

It has that mitigating effect.

Right.

In terms of you know just not blowing out.

We could try baking the baking soda,

which increases the alkalinity apparently.

Let's do it.

Baking turns sodium bicarbonate, which is baking soda,

into sodium carbonate.

I'm hoping that by using more of the baked baking soda

that it just helps the noodles themselves

retain their texture.

So this has to rest for a little while longer.

I'll try rolling it out in like half an hour.

I want to get the stock started, that's important.

I gotta let that go for several hours.

So the plan is to build a really concentrated chicken stock

with all of these aromatics in it, strain it,

and puree into it some solids.

So once it's dehydrated, I'll add in some msg.

Alright, so this dough has been sitting for about an hour.

I'm going to roll out two test portions.

So one boiled, one steamed.

And then both air fried until dry to just see

if there is a really noticeable texture difference.

[drumming]

It's a little bit R two D two.

I have no idea how this thing works.

Oh wait, there's a little thing at the top, cooking guide.

I'll do 300 for just a couple minutes,

and then I'll turn it down back to 200,

and for the remainder of the time.

They really crisped a lot.

I think maybe the steamed ones got a little browner.

Certainly both got browner than I intended.

So next time I have to moderate the temperature

a little bit and continue to cook them longer

in the air fryer.

This time I should cover them with like some plastic

so the noodles really hydrate.

So the stock has been going for about an hour and a half.

I'm going to take out some of the aromatics

that I want to puree, stir in the rest of the stock,

and then start reducing it again.

How many minutes has it been?

Literally no one said anything.

These have been sitting here for,

I got so distracted with the stock.

It's been like 10 minutes.

God, I've overcooked them.

Actually.

Actually, the boiled ones are not bad.

It's a little bouncy.

Yeah, definitely a little more elasticity this time

than before, even with overcooking the noodles.

If you hadn't soaked this too long,

I really think like you're basically there.

Great, that's what I love to hear.

Maybe I'll do one more test.

But first I'm going to blend this mixture.

It's really chickeny.

So this is that stock that's reducing.

Like a lot of depth of flavor.

Molly, this is what people eat who can't have solid food.

Yeah, it's adult baby food.

It's adult baby food.

Delicious, you should start a line.

How big is the market for that?

I think that's a bad business idea.

If I took that to Shark Tank, they'd be like absolutely not.

Yeah.

You know how much I love Shark Tank.

Yeah I know.

So I'm going to dehydrate this.

And pulverize it.

And then pulverize it, but I'm going to also add

then msg because it's kind of under seasoned.

Yeah.

My concerns about this are the following.

One, that it's just not going to fully dry.

Two, there's ingredients in here like sugar and collagen

that aren't going to want to fully dry.

We're just going to have to see.

I'm going to put them into our,

you might notice this is a different dehydrator.

Okay, that's 140, timer 18 hours.

Let me just recap.

So with Rhoda's help, I cut the rest of the noodles.

We blanched them all, drained them.

And then tossed them with chicken fat that we had.

So they all, they look great.

I'm really happy with them so far.

My goal before I leave tonight is to get everything dried.

And then just kind of like ready to go for tomorrow.

Let me see if I can even start to get these all

at least going in parallel lines.

And now I'm going to put that in there

at the lower temp.

So I'm going to do 10 minutes.

Oh, not at all dry.

Let me turn it to 200.

I'll check again in five minutes.

Like eight hours, I took a seat because I'm a little tired.

They are getting there, but not there yet.

It's getting crispier.

I'm just going to keep checking it.

I think, look it's getting to the point

where things are really winding down.

I'm exhausted.

I'm going to address this stuff tomorrow.

We're just gonna slap some plastic on it

and put it off to the side, what?

You're just like sitting down,

something's going to happen here.

It's just been like a very long day of shooting.

I actually feel fine, but I do have a lot to do

when I get home, so I have to conserve energy.

So, stop.

Okay, I think after many minutes,

I think we're there.

They definitely got kind of brown.

But in a fairly uniform way.

Okay, so can you see the fold?

Definitely the color is a big difference.

This is much darker, yellower, and kind of browner.

Whoa, did you do it in the air fryer?

Yeah.

It doesn't have the wave.

No, it's doesn't have the wave,

but who cares about the wave.

Oh I'm so glad you said that.

Because I don't.

We're going to do a quick boiling water test.

The chicken meat and some of the aromatics.

Oh my God.

[laughing]

Doesn't it smell chickeny?

Alright, don't forget about it, like I did last time.

Okay, are they cooked?

I think if you cooked them in water, like boiling water.

Like actually boil.

Yeah, but I think you're like,

I think it's going to work.

Like it's kind of chewy.

Yeah.

If you boil that in like boiling water in a pot.

Like properly.

30 more seconds.

They have a good flavor.

They were lightly coated in schmaltz.

I think you're like...

Close.

Really almost there.

Okay, good.

I agree with Christina and Amiel.

Maybe a little bit of like a brief boil.

Just to really fully cook the noodle.

And then take it off the heat.

Very curious about this whole dehydrating chicken thing.

We'll know tomorrow.

And hopefully put it all together.

[drumming]

I'm very curious to see how the stock has been dehydrating.

Okay, you guys, I mean this is really good.

You can see it's totally dry.

I think that I can grind this into a really fine powder

in the blender.

The color has kind of a nice, golden hue to it.

I think it looks great.

This is msg.

It kind of gets a bad wrap.

I have no problem with msg, and it does add

such a great umami flavor to things.

So I might do a salt, msg combo because

msg is seasoning, but it's not salty

the way salt is salty.

I think that's good.

Now I'm going to add in the chicken base.

You can see it's like definitely not dissolving.

Yum, it is like chicken soupy.

I'm going to put this in the blender

to just make sure everything dissolves.

And then I want Chris to taste it.

Wow.

[Claire] Chickeny, right?

Very chickeny.

Do you think it needs more salt?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm going to add a little bit of celery salt.

And then maybe like a red chili flake.

Overall, let me just back up and say, pretty impressive.

Oh thanks.

Yeah.

I have crushed red pepper flakes, garlic,

and onion powder, celery salt, and tumeric because why not.

It'll make it a little golden.

I really like it, I think it's good.

You like it less.

I like it less.

Do you need the garlic and the onion powder?

Was it just too much?

I think a little bit is a good.

Maybe a tiny bit is okay, but it's also like

you actually get a little bit more texture.

Because it's a little gritty.

A tiny bit.

Okay, I'm going to grind everything together

like really fine in the Vitamix.

Alright, I'm going to just do exactly what Chris said.

Okay, so definitely grinding it

into that really fine powder helped a lot.

It tastes really good.

Time to now finish dehydrating all the noodles

that I have left.

I knew we did this thing for a reason.

So we have this vacuum sealer.

You've probably seen Brad use it a lot.

So I can kind of try to make my own little bags.

One for the seasoning packet and one for the noodles.

[drumming]

Yeah.

Yeah.

This was that very first one.

And then I put it in its own little container.

This is the one that I wove into the wires of that rack.

This one obviously looks really nice.

Has some wave definition in the noodles.

I think that when it cooks up,

it's going to look really great.

Carla, you want to taste some

instant ramen in like two minutes?

[Carla] Yeah.

It's important that I dissolve this into the mixture first

because it doesn't dissolve as easily

as the stuff in the package.

Immediately it smells great.

They're absorbing water, which is then flavored with

that mixture, so it's giving the noodles

a lot of flavor in a good way.

Honestly though, it is such like a chewy noodle.

And the soup tastes really, really good.

So I'm feeling confident.

Oh Chris.

Oh hi Molly.

Oh.

[Claire] Carla was here for the weaving.

The noodles are a funny color.

There's spice in there.

This is really impressive.

Really?

The flavor of the soup is really good.

The texture of the noodles is so springy.

So this is the one that we're saving for the beauty.

But this is one where I wove the noodles,

so you get that look.

Yeah.

You should just sell that powdered mix.

Yeah.

How much do these go for a pop?

It might be a business idea.

Yeah, how much do you think one bowl cost you?

We're talking more than 35 cents, right?

Yeah.

$1,000.

$1,000.

Yay, thanks guys.

If this was on Alex Eats it All, right,

this is the three day instant noodle.

It takes three days to make it, right.

[Claire] Uh huh.

And I wait three days in line to eat it.

Is that an episode we can look forward to?

Maybe not.

Really?

I already found the best right here.

Oh, he's a charmer.

That's it, that's a wrap.

[drumming]

Here is how you make gourmet instant noodles.

For the noodles, stir 280 grams water,

10 grams kosher salt, and five grams baked baking soda

until dissolved.

Place 500 grams bread flour in a large bowl

and create a well.

Pour water mixture into well and knead until combined.

Cover with plastic and let rest

one hour at room temperature.

Roll out dough a portion at a time using a pasta roller.

Then cut into thin as noodles possible.

Boil noodles for one minute in a large pot of water.

Transfer to an ice bath, then toss

with a half teaspoon chicken fat.

Fry in an air fryer at 180 Fahrenheit about 20 minutes.

For the stock, heat a few tablespoons chicken fat

in a large pot.

Add four pounds chicken wings and cook till brown.

Add one cup cooking wine.

Cover with cold water.

Then add onion, a carrot, a large leek, celery stalk,

garlic, dried shitake mushrooms, bouquet garni,

black peppercorns, tumeric, ginger, a quarter cup soy sauce,

and three tablespoons white miso.

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer.

And strain stock into a smaller pot

and reserve about three cups solid.

Cook stock over medium high until about a half cup remains.

Blend solids with reduced stock to a smooth puree.

Spread in a thin layer onto baking sheets

and dehydrate for 18 hours at 120 Fahrenheit.

Break sheets into pieces and pulverize

to a fine powder in a blender.

For the seasoning packet, combine ground dehydrated powder

and stock, add msg, kosher salt, ground tumeric,

ground crushed red pepper flakes, ground white pepper,

celery salt, ground garlic powder, ground onion powder

in a blender and blend until finely ground.

Measure out your portions to create seasoning packets.

Bring two cups water to a simmer.

Whisk in seasoning packet until dissolved.

Add noodles and cook for one to two minutes.

Remove from heat and serve immediately.

How much would a single packet cost?

For you, or?

If you didn't know it was me,

and I walked into a store?

In the marketplace.

In the marketplace.

Like if this were my business?

Yeah?

As I said already, I watch a lot of Shark Tank.

Okay, 50 bucks.

A packet?

[Claire] Yeah.

Yeah, it's worth it.