The Ramen Issue

Here's what was supposed to happen: Instant Ramen Gnocchi Parisienne, from Lucky Peach: The Ramen Issue, ‘The new food quarterly from Momofuku’s David Chang.’ Why did I decide to whip up this dish when I know that I struggle with the inability to complete a published recipe successfully? That is an excellent question, and since the whole pot ended up in the compost, I really can’t provide a meaningful answer at the moment. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because the picture looks fantastic, the quarterly is well written and well designed, I think the Ramen at Momofuku is one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth, and I love gnocchi. So, put that all together, and I assumed I would end up with one fabulous evening. I seriously miscalculated the margin of error available for total culinary chaos.

I would first of all like to say that not only did I specifically purchase all the ingredients in advance for this recipe (it wasn’t hard – milk, eggs, butter, instant Ramen, basically even if you live in a frat house chances are you still probably already have the ingredients for this dish, and some beer), but I also read the recipe all the way through! And after reading the instructions, I felt entirely confident and incredibly impressed with individual lines, such as the suggestion that I should put the pastry bag full of dough “in the fridge to chill for the amount of time it takes to bring a large pot of water to a steady boil.” Yes, that is exactly what I’m talking about – a recipe time-frame that makes sense, none of this let stuff rest for 2 hours, then knead it, then rest it another 4 hours, at a rate of which if you’re making this meal for dinner, you need to start cooking it at breakfast. Unfortunately, it was only around the second step of Mr. Chang’s recipe that things went terribly, terribly wrong. The directions read: “Combine the noodles and 1 cup of reserved milk in a blender, purée for half a minute, then add the egg yolk and process until the mixture is smooth, homogenous, and has a consistency like loose toothpaste. (If for some inexplicable reason the mixture is dry, add more milk a tablespoon at a time to loosen it. This shouldn’t happen.).” Well David, it happened, and I was none too thrilled about it either. I think the first problem might have been that Mr. Change drastically overestimated the power of my home appliances. Once the egg yolks were in, the dough was so dense that the Cuisinart and the blender both quit on me. I eventually had to resort to the KitchenAid mixer, but that didn’t really do much to purée anything, it just smushed it down some more. So by the time I was squeezing stuff out of a pastry bag into the boiling water, I was feeling like there could be a problem, and then, when I was frying the little dough balls that looked nothing like the picture, I was really starting to sweat. “Add the gnocchi and cook them, stirring occasionally, until they’re golden-brown and delicious looking, about 3 to 4 minutes.” I knew I was in serious trouble at around 15 minutes into frying time when the gnocchi were neither golden, nor delicious looking, and had the appearance of, basically, egg, and not particularly well cooked egg either. At around quarter to 8, I thought maybe plan B needed to be fired up. Instant Ramen Gnocchi Parisienne – Time of Death: 7:52pm; Cause of Death: incompetent blender and a recipe that makes people think the unattainable is totally doable in 45 minutes or less. David, there is a reason I eat at your restaurant – please, don’t pretend that I could be making the same magic happen at home with packets of instant Ramen.

So, what we actually ate for dinner was ultra-last minute penne tossed with some quick sautéed broccoli, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, fresh basil and oregano from the garden, and Parmesan cheese grated on top. And I had managed to whip up a batch of spring rolls with shrimp, Mesclun greens, fresh basil and mint (again from the garden), and a sweet and spicy peanut sauce.

In the end, I was disappointed with the instant Ramen recipe that turned out to be a not so instant, but definite dough disaster. The Lucky Peach first issue is, however, a culinary pleasure. A whole magazine issue to devoted to Ramen, you say, eyebrow raised? I know, I thought that too, but let me tell you, it’s fun, it’s funky, there are good sounding recipes, (I’ll give another one a try and report back on actual recipe practicality), and there is even a wildly entertaining, er, conversation, well ok, it’s really more of a drunken rant, as advertised on the cover as ‘Bourdain, Dufresne, & Chang, DRUNK & Ranting,’ and that happens almost entirely through bubble quotes coming from floating images of these chefs’ respective heads. If that’s not worth the $10 Lucky Peach goes for at most major booksellers, I really don’t know what is. Although, for $10, you could also just buy 10 packets of instant Ramen. But the magazine is a blast to read, has a beautiful design, remarkable graphics including a full two-page spread photo of potato chips and a table of temperatures and techniques that aims to answer, in remarkable detail, what happens to eggs at various temperatures?, and some snippets of beautiful culture, thought-provoking and sincere prose, as well as savory recipes, mouth-watering photos, and the appropriate off-beat illustrations and all around badassness that one would expect from a magazine from David Chang and McSweeney publishing, and that is thoroughly endorsed by Mr. Culinary Badass himself: Anthony Bourdain (side note: I read Kitchen Confidential repeatedly, and even have the audio book version, which happens to be read by Mr. Bourdain, and who happens to pronounce it “coolinary.” Come on Anthony, you’re pictured on the front cover of your novel wielding a sabre – it’s culinary, man). In fact, I’m off to settle into the evening with the quarterly to finish up some articles, and for dinner, well, convinced that this Ramen gnocchi thing was going to be an instant success, I sort of stocked up. Care to join me for dinner this week? We’re having Ramen.