$116 vs $11 Ramen: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients | Epicurious

I love how the pro chef had respect for the ingredients and was able to bring out their best qualities and make a beautiful dish, even though she normally works with high quality stuff. That’s the sign that she’s talented bc she’s able to bring up the ingredients to her level

I love how Chef Esther doesn’t let things go to waste. She deserves her own cooking show, I can hear her talk all day.

i love how chaotically fun daniel is and calming esther is, polar opposite as it finest

As someone who is untrained and works with cheap ingredients when cooking, I really appreciated Chef Esther's approach to cooking that ramen. It is the kinda thing I do all the time, definitely not to her level, jazzing up cheap simple meals is a lot of fun and satisfying.

I LOVE the way they were soooo respectful, and no one made mean comments on the ingredients they chose for each other

There is a guy out there who can cook minute rice in 58 seconds. Then there is Esther, who can cook 2 Min packet noodles in 2 hrs. Equally impressive.

[recipe below]
Just tried making Esther's $11 version (only without meat and then we added mushrooms at the end) with my sister. We had it for lunch and I would highly recommend it. Our mom and our other sister were very impressed with us doing this by ourselves, and it's actually pretty doable for younglings like me. So don't be intimidated by it!

My sister and I's version of Esther's $11 version :
(serves 4 and takes ~2 hours)

Ingrediets :
-veggie broth from walmart [it already had 4 servings] (fight us, we decided to make this today. what did you expect?)
-3 stems of scallions
-4 eggs
-5 cups of water
-1/4 cup veggie oil
-4 cloves of garlic (minced)
-2 tablespoons of peeled and chopped ginger
-4 ramen noodle servings
-1/3 cup soy sauce
-red pepper flakes (to taste)
-mushrooms (to taste)
-fried onion bits that we already had (to taste)

~broth~
1. dump broth into a pot. leave be for now

~tare~
2. in a different (and cold) sauce pot, add 1/3 soy sauce, 2 out of 4 cloves of garlic, and half of your chopped ginger (1 tablespoon)

3. take out a small bowl and a strainer for later

4. now turn the heat on to boil for 5 mins

5. take it off heat and strain your tare into a small bowl

6. in the strainer, you still have garlic and ginger bits. dump these bits into your sitting broth for flavor, leave broth be for now


~aromatic oil~
7. mince the rest of your garlic and chop the rest of your ginger, leave on cutting board for now

8. take out a small bowl with a strainer in it and a small plate with a paper towel on it for later

9. take a large pan and add 1/4 cups of veggie oil and 2 of your scallion stems (cut with kitchen scissors)


10. heat this until its starts to bubble


11. when it starts to bubble, add your garlic and ginger, don't leave

12. when the garlic starts to turn, take it off heat, then strain it

13. in the strainer, you have scallion, garlic, and ginger pieces. dump them onto the plate with the paper towel to dry. they will become crispy. leave be your oil and yummy bits for now.

~eggs~
14. take out a small pot and add 4 cups of water and bring this to a boil

15. take out your eggs, and get 1 cup of cold water from the sink

16. dump cold water into the pot then take it off heat

17. gently add your eggs in then cover the pot

18. let sit for 15 minutes

19. during those 15 minutes, take out a medium bowl and fill it with ice and water

20. after 15 minutes, gently take the eggs out and into the ice bowl

21. let it until cool

~noodles~
22. cook your noodles (i think we all know how to cook instant ramen, right? if not ask google, it's easy)

23. put strained noodles into your ramen bowl

~assembly~
24. add broth (to taste) into your ramen

25. lightly drizzle your tare and your aromatic oil into the bowl then mix (to taste)

26. add your fried aromatic oil yummy bits (to taste)

27. add fried onion bits (to taste)

28. add mushrooms (to taste)

29. crack your egg into the bowl

30. add red pepper flakes (to taste)

31. have a wonderful time eating this because it takes 2 hours

hope this oversimplification and unnecessary specification helps anyone!

Daniel is so funny, I love his commentary. I also love how Esther explained everything she did in detail

She's soooo good at talking. Her voice is so smoothing and calming!

I wrote down Chef Esther's recipe for myself if anyone else wants it!

Ingredients:

Instant Ramen
Garlic
Ginger
Rotisserie Chicken
Eggs
Scallions
Soy Sauce
Sesame Seeds

Making the Broth:

Pull off all the meat from the chicken, separating the skin from the meat.
The meat on the wings might be too tough for the topping, use it in the broth with the bones & carcass of the chicken. Dismantle the carcass to extract more flavor from the bones. Add water to your stock.
For aromatics, loosely chop scallion and ginger (skin on) and smashed garlic and add to pot
Boil for an hour or two.

Making Tare:

Add soy sauce to the pot and add in chopped ginger, garlic, and ramen packet and boil for five minutes to make sure that the seasoning packet is fully incorporated, and ginger & garlic is fully extracted.
Strain out the ginger and the garlic.

Aromatic Oil:

Chop up the scallions and add them to a cold pan, add vegetable oil, and turn on medium-high heat. While that gets hot, mince ginger and garlic. For ginger, you can peel it with a spoon to minimize waste. You can add scraps to stock. Add minced garlic & ginger to the pan.
Do not walk away from the pan, the color will darken VERY QUICKLY. Watch closely and as soon as it starts to turn light brown, take off heat into a new container. Strain to separate the aromatic oil from the crispy topping bits.


Boiled Eggs (Onsen Tamago):

Put one cup of cold water into 4 cups of boiling water (this way the water is about 75-ish degrees Celsius) and let the egg hang out there for 15 minutes in a covered pan to keep the temperature in there. That way you get that super runny silky egg in the broth.

Remove from water and put into a bowl with cold water & ice to cool completely before cracking (make sure to account for elevation).


After finishing the above steps, move on to the following:

- Strain the broth through a Shinwa and push down on the carcass with the ladle to get all the good stuff.

- Add body to the broth with egg yolks. Separate out yolks from eggs and temper the egg yolks with the broth and slowly whisk. Add egg & broth mixture back into the main broth bowl. Avoid adding the hot broth too quickly, the eggs might begin to cook and curdle.

- Fry the chicken skin by adding in vegetable oil and get to a high temperature. Test the heat by holding the chicken skin barely into the pan and waiting to hear a sizzle.

- Fry the skin and put it into paper towels. Add some flavoring packet onto the skin for seasoning.

- Add half a cup of tare to the chicken meat and put chicken meat back into the pan that was used for frying the skin. When the chicken starts to caramelize, it is ready.

- Lightly toast the sesame seeds to release oil, and grind them up in a spice grinder.

- Slice up some scallions into sexy scallions.

- Boil noodles.

Assembling:

Add sesame seed to the bottom of the bowl and add broth. Add broth and noodles. Then chicken, some of the crispy mixture, and skin. Add egg and scallions and top with aromatic oil. Enjoy!

I love Esther's comment on the rotisserie chicken: "this is like a nice gift." :D It's the backbone of the ingredients: it becomes both the stock and the meat component of the finished dish.

I'm amazed how she built so many levels of flavor and texture. I've watched several episodes and am amazed every time how they elevate these simple ingredients.

I love the fact the Esther doesnt add a bunch of her own ingredients
She adds basic things like water or seasoning but she doesnt completely change ingredients

Daniel: sends ingredients to pro chef

Pro chef: NEW RECIPE.

Fell in love with Daniel when he mentioned Appa haha, such a fun guy. Also, Chef Esther never stops to amaze me! Can’t wait to eat ramen noww

This guy should be a voice actor. I love his voice. Or really any actor. I love his energy and expression too!

Honestly, it was extremely cool seeing what Ms Choi did with the 11 bucks worth of ingredients. That something that I could learn to do and apply to my own budget ramen lol. Its insane how amazing she got that to look.

I love when the pro chefs ONLY use the ingredients given to them and just gets really creative with them. Its a little less impressive when they start pulling their own ingredients out of their kitchens.

If Chef Esther had a cooking show I would binge watch the entire thing impatiently wait for more episodes

i love this chef, she shows how easy you can make things, and explains the more difficult ingredients but shes not a snob about it, love her!