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Cooking can be difficult and expensive but everyone starts somewhere, and just because one doesn’t have the technical know-how to produce a gourmet dish
doesn’t mean they don’t have the opportunity to explore gourmet flavors. With a bottle of S1 XO and a pack of cheap noodles, it is still possible to produce gourmet flavors even in a cramped dorm room.
Open the ramen noodle pack and discard everything but the noodles themselves. Fill a small sauce pot half full of water and bring to a rolling boil. (If an open flame is something that is not at one’s disposal, it is possible to cook ramen noodles in a plethora of different appliances. College students may know the trick of cooking ramen in a coffee machine while former inmates are the forefathers to the art of making ramen with nothing but warm water, a plastic container, and some bed sheets. Where there is a will there is a way). When the water reaches a boil, add the noodles and cook until the noodles are al-dente (“To the teeth” meaning the noodles are tender but firm upon biting).
As the noodles are cooking, place a tablespoon of butter and a pinch of salt into a bowl. When the noodles are finished, strain any excess water and add the warm noodles to the bowl over the butter. Next, crack one egg separating just the whites from the yolk, only the yolk will be necessary here. (If separating the yolk seems like a difficult task, simply cup your hand and gently open your fingers allowing the whites to flow through your fingers until just the yolk remains). Add the egg yolk to the bowl on top of the noodles. Finally, take one heaping spoonful of S1 XO and add it right on top of the bowl next to your egg yolk.
Mix your noodle bowl thoroughly. The final product will have the fat in the butter emulsified with the egg yolk and the oil from the XO. This is a similar philosophy to something like carbonara and your finished product will be a rich creamy sauce that is not only hearty and thick but overflowing with flavor with the absolute minimum of culinary execution necessary
If you are looking to expand upon this simple recipe you can take this from basic to impressive with a few simple additions. Simply replace the butter with duck fat, add togarashi to the bowl when adding the salt, and garnish with things like finger chili, scallion, and sesame seeds. This is a bit more complex and demanding of one’s culinary skills but allows for a platform to expand one’s skills from.
