For quite some time, I have been hearing about a “Fire Noodles Challenge” that has been quite popular with Youtubers/Vloggers who have been attempting the same using the Samyang Buldak (or Fire Chicken) Ramen… Having been exposed to Korean culture thanks to my friend, I have been wanting to try their food but sadly as we all know, we don’t get to have anything authentic here and even though a couple of restaurants have announced starting one or two Korean dishes, thanks to the Pandemic situation, I haven’t been able to try… Thats when I noticed the availability of Samyang’s products thru Amazon and here we are…
Now let me make one thing clear… I have absolutely no intention of attempting the Fire Noodles Challenge… This is simply because even though I don’t mind having spicy food, there is always a limit to the amount of spiciness I can handle… I mean I love the flavour of the chillies, but can’t handle much of the heat… Thats why, among the various Buldak options, I went for the original / regular / normal version instead of the 2x, 3x, etc spicy versions thats typically used for the challenge… Couple of my friends had attempted the challenge and had advised me to not even attempt it as they know about my tolerance levels to heat… They however had suggested that I try the regular version…
So, lets talk about how I prepared the noodles… I referred to various recipes in Youtube and came to the conclusion that once I get the noodles cooked, the rest can be as I usually do with my usual noodle brands… So, here we go…
Ingredients
- Samyang Buldak Ramen – 1 pack
- Egg – 2 nos (I started with just one in mind, then decided to add one more as mentioned below)
- Cabbage – roughly a handful chopped
- Carrot – roughly a handful chopped
- Capsicum / Green Bell Pepper – roughly a handful chopped
- Refined Cooking Oil – 3-4 tbsps as per preference
Procedure
- As mentioned in the instructions on the pack, take 600ml of water in a pot and bring to boil…
- Drop in the noodle cake(s) and let it simmer for 5 mins…
- When the noodles are cooked, drain the water but don’t throw the water away…
- Pour in 8-10 tbsps of that noodle water back into the noodles and take it back to the stove…
- Pour in the given sauce from the Ramen pack and mix well, stir frying the whole thing in low flame till the whole noodles get coated in sauce and the water reduces to the point where the noodles are left just wet / moist as can be seen in the pic below…
- Drop in the seasoning / topping from the other packet and mix well and turn off the stove…
- Now take a pan on the stove and pour in some cooking oil…
- When the oil is hot enough, drop in the Cashews and let it fry for a bit till the color begins to change…
- Now drop in the Cabbage and Carrots and let them fry till the raw smell is gone…
- Now drop the egg and capsicum and stir fry everything well till the egg gets cooked…
- Once the eggs are cooked, drop the stir fried eggs and veggies mix into the noodles (if the noodles feel too try and cold by now, add a couple more tbsps of the noodle water and mix everything on a low flame to re-heat it up)…
Thats it… The Buldak Ramen is ready to be eaten… Now, having seen how people usually eat these noodles, I found one thing to be common and its that they always have a fried egg as accompaniment… So, I thought of doing the same to get the full experience and thats why I took out the second egg and used the rest of the cooking oil… But unfortunately the yolk broke and so, it ended up being a fried egg thats midway between a fried egg and an omelette… So, as can be seen in the pics below, it was finally done and ready to be eaten…
Now, coming to the taste, I must say that the flavour profile is definitely something I have never tasted before… What I noticed is that the very first bite I took felt very spicy… But, the bites after that felt not so much and rather I felt a slight sweetness cutting thru the flavour of the Chillies, Soy, Onions, Garlic and Chicken… Its clear that they have used multiple kinds of chillies here and the way the heat hit my tastebuds, felt like they used Chilly oil as well rather than just chillies… So, the taste of the Chillies is indeed what dominates the flavour profile and rather than just the heat, I felt the flavour of the chillies as well along with a very slight hint of Curry powder similar to how it was in the Japanese instant noodle product that I recently had… Another thing I noticed is that fact that the flavour of Chicken felt similar to the dark meat of the country chicken and it did indeed cut thru everything else and could be felt in every bite… I guess the spicier versions of this product may be using more of the chilly oil in the sauce… The noodles too felt very different from the noodles we get here… I felt a slight hint of the flavour of Tapioca in them with that signature boba kind of elastic/bouncy texture to them…
Overall, I must say that I ended up loving this noodle dish… Regarding the spice level, I guess its possible that my use of the vegetables and egg in the noodles may have helped to mellow down the spiciness a bit… I guess when I get the chance to try this again, I’ll try using more of the noodle water and make it a bit soupy instead of following the instructions to the letter as I think I would prefer such a version more than the dry version which is how it ended up being this time… Plus, I think adding a little bit of tomato sauce could help reduce the heat level too… Hopefully will be able to try soon… So, as for you the reader, if you like spicy foods, please do feel free to get and try this Buldak ramen and let me know in the comments section below… And if you are the adventurous type and have a good tolerance for extreme spice levels and more importantly, have absolutely no history of gastric issues, feel free try the Fire Noodle Challenge using the spicier versions of this product and let me know how that went… However, having tasted this normal one, I wouldn’t really encourage you to try the spicier versions, but if are still going for them, please do so at your own risk… 🙂
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