Breakfast Ramen

To start this entry we again have to take a quick walk down memory lane. No twists or turns, just a straight hike back to maybe grade 4-6 if you have been kicking around Earth about the same amount of time as I have. One of the highlights of being that age and going to school everyday was lunch, at least for me. My parents never gave me a fancy lunch but I was never going without either. One item that swept the countryside was Mr Noodles. This is an instant ramen product that is very low cost and probably low nutrition but it gives you salt and tastes…..it was cool. Because we were children, we didn’t have a means to cook the noodles so we crushed them up, dumped the little silver seasoning packet in and shook it all about before crunching through the little bits of raw ramen. I have no idea if this was duplicated elsewhere but it was a hot item at my particular school. Over the years, I’ve learned to prepare them the proper way, even going as far as to read the instructions a few times. Basically, boil water, add noodles, cook, drain, then stir in the contents of the flavour condom. Delicious! I’m a growing boy so I make two packets at a time, which is a meal for $0.50 total. I still keep a couple on hand for a quick, cheap meal. During these trying times I’ve bought a bunch more because they are cheap and probably never go bad. Today I had a slow start and again didn’t want to sacrifice my eggs, so without thinking I started frying some bacon. Not know what to eat it with it (I’m not a psycho eating just bacon), an idea struck me.

I like bacon, I like Mr Noodles, what could go wrong?! I immediately do red up a pot of water and started the noodles. The bacon was done long before the noodles so I had to kill the heat and move the pan so I didn’t smoke up the delightful bacon grease. As I was draining the noodles, I fired the grease back up over medium heat. I dumped the now dry noodles into the grease and cranked the heat, stirring constantly. The noodles absorbed the flavour and deglazed my pan. I got a hint of crisp on the noodles. I put them back in their still warm pot and mixed in about 3/4 of the usual amount of seasoning (usually two flavour condoms), in this case chicken flavour. I crumbled two strips of bacon on top and voila!

It tasted amazing. The savoury bacon flavour permeated every bite with a surprising richness. I could just catch a whiff of the chicken seasoning as well. The crispy bacon provided a subtle little crunch for a difference in texture in each forkful. It was filling to be certain. I made sure to guzzle several glasses of water during consumption in an attempt to both reduce the richness and also counteract the assumedly gigantic amount of sodium I was shoveling into my gob. The experiment was a resounding success, will repeat in the future for sure.