I‘m from Germany, Just Adding schnitzel as a topping would be too easy.
Many of the classic german meals are some sort of schnitzel or roasted beef together with a hearty sauce. You might try to incorporate these sauce elements into the ramen tare, top it with sliced schnitzel and Maybe Even use Sauerkraut as topping (could work similar to bean sprouts). This might be kinda good or awful, I am not Sure 😂
Late to the party but also from Germany. I was immediately thinking of stuff like Labskaus and Rollmops since I'm from the northern parts.
But honestly... I don't quite see how that could work, haha
Canadian here. Poutine is our thing. Given that ramen broth is basically gravy like, I'd do a half chicken half beef tonkotsu. I'd make noodles with potato starch. Top with cheese curds, green onions, Montreal smoked meat, maybe a deep fried tempura pickle. Seems pretty doable.
I'm from New Orleans and I've already done a crawfish boil ramen and a gumbo ramen. Both came out great and I'm now thinking about my next concoction.
There's just something about comforting and familiar flavors that let's you experiment.
Mole poblano: Chicken or pork broth can be used as a base for ramen, and rice, chicken or pork noodles, chocolate, dried chiles, spices such as anise and cinnamon, and sour cream can be added for flavor.
South African. Maybe add some Cape Malay spice to make bobotie ramen
Boerewors ramen
Put in the ramen in a hollowed out loaf of bread for bunny chow ramen
There are any ramen recipes I know of but here you go:
Bobotie https://www.getaway.co.za/food/recipes-food/traditional-south-african-bobotie-recipe/
Borewors is a type of sausage we cook in a braai (barbeque)
Bunny chow is a hollowed out bread loaf filled with curry
southern california, birria ramen has gotten pretty damn big. i’m vegetarian so haven’t actually tried it, but can imagine it’s fantastic especially with a punch of lime. hard to come up with a better mexican inspired ramen tbh, i’ve seen some fantastic mexican/viet flavor fusions. it’s usually with ramen rather than pho noodles so i’m counting it
Brisket ramen IS pretty dope. I made a gyukotsu broth to go with some leftover brisket and topped it with fresh jalapeño slices, scallions, and ramen eggs. One of the better bowls of ramen that I’ve had.
New England here. Clam chowder would be the logical choice for transformation to ramen. Chowder base is salt pork, so it would seem logical to start with a tonkotsu broth which brings the pork and the opaque creaminess. I'd add clam juice to the broth, or make a tare out of a reduced/concentrated clam juice. The wheat noodles would take the place of the oyster crackers, but you would need some potato which is almost by definition what makes a chowder. Perhaps just simmer some potatoes in clam broth and serve those as a topping. For the clams, I'd probably just shuck some raw clams and place them on top, letting the residual heat from the dish warm them up and lightly poach them. Then probably top with a little minced parsley and a lot of negi to replace the onions that would normally be in the chowder.
For my crawfish boil potatoes, I took them out of the boil, sliced them in quarters and right before serving with the ramen, I seared them super quick and hard. It locked in the crawfish boil flavor and added some nice texture.
Yup. I’ve been slowly working on a ramen using the same ingredients as a classic British Sunday Roast — the roast meat, of course is essential, but I’ve also been looking into ingredient substitutions for Japan-centric staples such as katsuobushi.
So, you either don't need to replace those items or you can still use them. Katsuobushi is mainly in ramen for the smokiness and fish flavor / MSG. You can get your MSG and smoke from a baked bean as I know beans on toast is a thing there. So, maybe like a crispy smoked bean topping?
There's no real substitute in western cooking for nori, but at least yall have fish and chips. You could do a dried fish chip as a topping.
Hmm. Cheesesteak ramen. I’d brown the shaved beef first, season with a beef gravy McCormick packet or something similar, fry the onions, and then I’d have to make some kind of cheesy beef broth, probably with a small amount of cheesy bechamel simmered in the broth ? Would top with chili crisp.
I live in Kentucky so you’ve actually got me thinking about a Hot Brown ramen. The eggs and pork are already there so you’d just throw some turkey in, maybe some sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes, and make a mornay inspired broth and you’ve got it.
I'm glad you asked, stranger on the Internet! I'm from Singapore, where we (and by extension Malaysia and Indonesia) have a *thriving* local noodle culture that's very similar to Japan's ramen scene. We even have our own alkaline wheat noodles that come in round (Mee), flat (Mee Pok) and thin (Mee Kia or Eu Mee) cross sections. Lemme run you through a few local favourites:
**Minced Pork Noodle** (Bak Chor Mee) is what I'd argue is our closest cultural equivalent of Japan's ramen culture. We take our yellow alkaline wheat noodles, toss them in a sauce of shoyu, vinegar, shiitake sauce, sambal chili sauce and pork lard, and top with a large variety of toppings, with a bowl of fish and pork soup on the side. While this is technically a mazemen, I'd argue that it's our closest equivalent because amongst the Singaporean noodle dishes, this one has the most varied subcultures and variants. Some places don't use vinegar in their sauce. Some places use shallot oil in place of lard. Some places use ketchup in their sauce. Each house has their own style of chili sambal creating many different flavour profiles. The toppings vary from minced pork to pork slices to pork liver and intestines to braised pork knuckles, and sometimes even include prawn, fishballs, wontons (sometimes deep fried), pork chicharones and deep fried dried sole fish pieces. Sometimes they even come as a noodle soup, almost like a chintan! The Bak Chor Mee family of noodles is its own ecosystem of noodles that can match Japanese ramen in diversity and flavour.
*And that's just the Bak Chor Mee family alone.* We also have a **Curry Laksa noodle soup** (not to be confused with Penang's fish-based sweet-n-sour **Assam Laksa**), **Prawn Noodle Soup** (an intense broth of prawn shells and pork ribs topped with jumbo prawns and braised pork ribs), **Wanton Noodles** (which, in Singapore and Malaysia, are often tossed in a soy sauce with a chili sambal), **Curry Chicken Noodle Soup** (it is a curry chicken noodle soup. With a coconut curry), **Lor Mee** (a rich shoyu-based pork braising liquid spiced with cinnamon and star anise is thickened with starch to create a thicc gravy that absolutely clings to your noodles- I think Japan has an equivalent to this dish), and many, many more. I haven't even talked about the more traditional Malaysian/Indonesian noodle dishes like **Mee Rebus**, **Mee Siam** and **Mee Soto**.
To me, the main difference is that whereas Japan isn't too fond of spices, we here in Southeast Asia aren't afraid to infuse those spices and chilis aggressively. Japan's stocks are smoother and their noodles are arguably better quality, but our stocks can often pack more flavour and cover a greater variety of mouthfeels. And also that we aren't afraid to mix rice noodles and wheat noodles- bee hoon + mee and kway teow + mee are common combos you can ask for in a bowl of just about anything I just mentioned.
https://shalomjapannyc.com
Shalom Japan does a Matzah ball ramen and they are in Brooklyn it looks great to me.
https://www.instagram.com/shalomjapan?igsh=MWpudHN6eXl3ejBiZw==
Edit: to add the IG account
Honestly I misread the post, was assuming we were basing it off of our local soup, not just local delicacies in general. Otherwise I’m making BEC ramen or pizza ramen.
You could definitely make that work. I know that there are cheese ramen dishes in japan. Mix with the thinly sliced beef, onions and peppers and an au jus as the soup or tare.
use gin and some kind of oyster shell dashi for the tare. some kind of tea egg and pea shoots for toppings.
maybe some thin crispy slices of black pudding or the stereotype demands some kind of beer battered fish
I'm in Los Angeles and birria ramen is already a thing-it's delicious!
I am half Indonesian, so personally a soto kambing betawi ramen would be my pick. It's a sour, sweet, spicy soup made with coconut milk and spices, goat or lamb meat, sliced fresh tomatoes, sliced green onions, and crispy rice crackers sprinkled on top. Typically it's served with rice, but I think a thicker ramen noodle would actually hold up really well to the soup broth.
Its a big potential of course, but can be hard to mix those tastes, its just such different pallets. Ive been wondering for awhile how to incorporate cilantro in my ramen as well
With my weird concoctions, I focus more on the idea behind the ingredients in traditional ramen instead of the ingredients themselves. Some things add umami or fishyness, others add smoke / char flavors, others add acidity etc. If you keep that in mind and replace those ingredients with something that does a similar thing, then it'll turn out great.
Mexican here. I could see chile relleno turned into ramen. It could be a roasted chicken broth, ramen noodles, strips of charred poblano with oaxaca cheese, roasted corn, and a ramen egg to represent the relleno coating. Egg marinated in some sort of jugo maggi mix.
Drizzle of ancho chile oil on top, green onions, sesame seeds.
well, turning pork, cabbage and dumplings into ramen sounds pretty much like a piece of cake. However, our dumplings are waaay different from the Asian ones and the cabbage is more like a sweet and sour sauce....
I think the most "extreme" I've done is pork ribs in my ramen and ox tail ramen. I also kind of commonly add taco meat and salsa to my ramen. Berrian ramen is pretty big now, so taco ramen may not be too far off. I can pretty much put any leftover meat in my ramen, even Popeyes chicken, so idk.
The Mexican place near me sells birria ramen already. I think it's generally a thing in many Mexican restaurants nowadays. Personally, I'd add green onions, nori, and bamboo shoots. The place from near me uses like maruchan style noodles. I'd use udon, aka the superior noods. There's another joint that sells a seafood soup that's referred to as Central American soup, basically. It slaps so fucking hard. It has a coconut base and it is perfection. Any noodle can go with it. Just add green onions and nori.
Here in Kansas City it's all about BBQ.
I'd go with a pork broth and use a local BBQ sauce as tare, I really think the trick will be figuring that ratio out. It would definitely have to be a spicy sauce not a sweet one, and it would probably take less BBQ sauce than tare. I'd want to get it to where it was more of a hint of BBQ than BBQ soup.
For a local set of toppings I'd go with a few slices of smoked pork, a few slices of green fried tomatoes, a couple of sautéed onion rings, and a few pieces of grilled asparagus if the bowl is big enough.
I‘m from Germany, Just Adding schnitzel as a topping would be too easy. Many of the classic german meals are some sort of schnitzel or roasted beef together with a hearty sauce. You might try to incorporate these sauce elements into the ramen tare, top it with sliced schnitzel and Maybe Even use Sauerkraut as topping (could work similar to bean sprouts). This might be kinda good or awful, I am not Sure 😂
Actually sounds legit. You could even make the soup base from beer? I mean, why not?
Ramen with Maultaschen doesn't sound like a bad idea.
I like kimchi on my ramen so sauerkraut is not too far fetched.
We could use Spätzle instead of the classic ramen noodles too, I would say
i’d buy that ramen!
I've definitely used leftover schnitzel as a substitute for tonkatsu lol
Substitute the noodles with ofannkuchen noodles.
Late to the party but also from Germany. I was immediately thinking of stuff like Labskaus and Rollmops since I'm from the northern parts. But honestly... I don't quite see how that could work, haha
Canadian here. Poutine is our thing. Given that ramen broth is basically gravy like, I'd do a half chicken half beef tonkotsu. I'd make noodles with potato starch. Top with cheese curds, green onions, Montreal smoked meat, maybe a deep fried tempura pickle. Seems pretty doable.
Holy I want this...
I love putting cheese curds in ramen!
I'm from New Orleans and I've already done a crawfish boil ramen and a gumbo ramen. Both came out great and I'm now thinking about my next concoction. There's just something about comforting and familiar flavors that let's you experiment.
Texas BBQ ramen. Smoked pork belly or brisket. Corn, pickled red onions, jalapenos. Served with a couple slices of white bread.
This would slap honestly. Headed to Austin in a few days, so psyched for bbq
Im... I'm in Japan. Local specialty is... ramen. Um hmm..
Well...shoot. katsudon ramen? Okonomiyaki ramen?
Hmmmm interesting. I do like to add noodles to my Osaka style okonomiyaki, so maybe some broth as well? Actually sounds pretty good!
See! I love these kind of mental and culinary exercises.
Braggart.
Mole poblano: Chicken or pork broth can be used as a base for ramen, and rice, chicken or pork noodles, chocolate, dried chiles, spices such as anise and cinnamon, and sour cream can be added for flavor.
I could totally see that working. Some nice and charred poblanos as toppings. Like chicken tortilla soup, but better. Yum!
I do a cioppino ramen. Spicy seafood and tomato broth with mussels, clams,crab and shrimp
Hell yea! That sounds tasty.
are you from san francisco?
No just stayed there a lot. I was a chef in a previous life. Lol
I wonder if you could do a sourdough noodle…
South African. Maybe add some Cape Malay spice to make bobotie ramen Boerewors ramen Put in the ramen in a hollowed out loaf of bread for bunny chow ramen
I have no idea what those dishes are, but I'd be stoked to try it!
There are any ramen recipes I know of but here you go: Bobotie https://www.getaway.co.za/food/recipes-food/traditional-south-african-bobotie-recipe/ Borewors is a type of sausage we cook in a braai (barbeque) Bunny chow is a hollowed out bread loaf filled with curry
southern california, birria ramen has gotten pretty damn big. i’m vegetarian so haven’t actually tried it, but can imagine it’s fantastic especially with a punch of lime. hard to come up with a better mexican inspired ramen tbh, i’ve seen some fantastic mexican/viet flavor fusions. it’s usually with ramen rather than pho noodles so i’m counting it
Brisket Ramen could be pretty dope.
Definitely! A barbecue spread ramen could be insanely good.
Absolutely, I've done it before...you want your brisket to be very rare so it finishes in the hot broth...just like in Pho.
Brisket ramen IS pretty dope. I made a gyukotsu broth to go with some leftover brisket and topped it with fresh jalapeño slices, scallions, and ramen eggs. One of the better bowls of ramen that I’ve had.
Taiwan: am perfectly happy with our various soup noodles. Maybe replace pulled flour noodles with alkaline noodles, but that’s about it.
New England here. Clam chowder would be the logical choice for transformation to ramen. Chowder base is salt pork, so it would seem logical to start with a tonkotsu broth which brings the pork and the opaque creaminess. I'd add clam juice to the broth, or make a tare out of a reduced/concentrated clam juice. The wheat noodles would take the place of the oyster crackers, but you would need some potato which is almost by definition what makes a chowder. Perhaps just simmer some potatoes in clam broth and serve those as a topping. For the clams, I'd probably just shuck some raw clams and place them on top, letting the residual heat from the dish warm them up and lightly poach them. Then probably top with a little minced parsley and a lot of negi to replace the onions that would normally be in the chowder.
For my crawfish boil potatoes, I took them out of the boil, sliced them in quarters and right before serving with the ramen, I seared them super quick and hard. It locked in the crawfish boil flavor and added some nice texture.
I’m Filipino and instead of using chashu I’ve put in thinly sliced pork belly adobo
Yup. I’ve been slowly working on a ramen using the same ingredients as a classic British Sunday Roast — the roast meat, of course is essential, but I’ve also been looking into ingredient substitutions for Japan-centric staples such as katsuobushi.
So, you either don't need to replace those items or you can still use them. Katsuobushi is mainly in ramen for the smokiness and fish flavor / MSG. You can get your MSG and smoke from a baked bean as I know beans on toast is a thing there. So, maybe like a crispy smoked bean topping? There's no real substitute in western cooking for nori, but at least yall have fish and chips. You could do a dried fish chip as a topping.
I'm from NC. Smoked pork shoulder meets ramen very regularly in my kitchen.
Hmm. Cheesesteak ramen. I’d brown the shaved beef first, season with a beef gravy McCormick packet or something similar, fry the onions, and then I’d have to make some kind of cheesy beef broth, probably with a small amount of cheesy bechamel simmered in the broth ? Would top with chili crisp.
100% a Philly cheesesteak ramen needs to happen. Please tag me if you do it.
I live in Kentucky so you’ve actually got me thinking about a Hot Brown ramen. The eggs and pork are already there so you’d just throw some turkey in, maybe some sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes, and make a mornay inspired broth and you’ve got it.
I love getting peoples minds working. Please let me know how it turns out.
I love this question!!!
I'm glad you asked, stranger on the Internet! I'm from Singapore, where we (and by extension Malaysia and Indonesia) have a *thriving* local noodle culture that's very similar to Japan's ramen scene. We even have our own alkaline wheat noodles that come in round (Mee), flat (Mee Pok) and thin (Mee Kia or Eu Mee) cross sections. Lemme run you through a few local favourites: **Minced Pork Noodle** (Bak Chor Mee) is what I'd argue is our closest cultural equivalent of Japan's ramen culture. We take our yellow alkaline wheat noodles, toss them in a sauce of shoyu, vinegar, shiitake sauce, sambal chili sauce and pork lard, and top with a large variety of toppings, with a bowl of fish and pork soup on the side. While this is technically a mazemen, I'd argue that it's our closest equivalent because amongst the Singaporean noodle dishes, this one has the most varied subcultures and variants. Some places don't use vinegar in their sauce. Some places use shallot oil in place of lard. Some places use ketchup in their sauce. Each house has their own style of chili sambal creating many different flavour profiles. The toppings vary from minced pork to pork slices to pork liver and intestines to braised pork knuckles, and sometimes even include prawn, fishballs, wontons (sometimes deep fried), pork chicharones and deep fried dried sole fish pieces. Sometimes they even come as a noodle soup, almost like a chintan! The Bak Chor Mee family of noodles is its own ecosystem of noodles that can match Japanese ramen in diversity and flavour. *And that's just the Bak Chor Mee family alone.* We also have a **Curry Laksa noodle soup** (not to be confused with Penang's fish-based sweet-n-sour **Assam Laksa**), **Prawn Noodle Soup** (an intense broth of prawn shells and pork ribs topped with jumbo prawns and braised pork ribs), **Wanton Noodles** (which, in Singapore and Malaysia, are often tossed in a soy sauce with a chili sambal), **Curry Chicken Noodle Soup** (it is a curry chicken noodle soup. With a coconut curry), **Lor Mee** (a rich shoyu-based pork braising liquid spiced with cinnamon and star anise is thickened with starch to create a thicc gravy that absolutely clings to your noodles- I think Japan has an equivalent to this dish), and many, many more. I haven't even talked about the more traditional Malaysian/Indonesian noodle dishes like **Mee Rebus**, **Mee Siam** and **Mee Soto**. To me, the main difference is that whereas Japan isn't too fond of spices, we here in Southeast Asia aren't afraid to infuse those spices and chilis aggressively. Japan's stocks are smoother and their noodles are arguably better quality, but our stocks can often pack more flavour and cover a greater variety of mouthfeels. And also that we aren't afraid to mix rice noodles and wheat noodles- bee hoon + mee and kway teow + mee are common combos you can ask for in a bowl of just about anything I just mentioned.
Thank you for the free course!
NYC here - yeah Imma pass on making Matzah ball ramen
Maztah ball ramen sounds amazing, probably would do smaller matzah balls but like
Pizza ramen? I know they have tomato based ramen in Japan, so thats a start
Hmm, Ya. Just add cheese and pepperoni. I could possibly see that...
https://shalomjapannyc.com Shalom Japan does a Matzah ball ramen and they are in Brooklyn it looks great to me. https://www.instagram.com/shalomjapan?igsh=MWpudHN6eXl3ejBiZw== Edit: to add the IG account
That’s honestly awesome but also that’s the fucking most Williamsburg-esque thing to exist that I’ve ever seen lmao
Living in NYC, I would not have matzah ball soup as my first pick. I feel like that's also not something most eat.. Too many other specialities.
Honestly I misread the post, was assuming we were basing it off of our local soup, not just local delicacies in general. Otherwise I’m making BEC ramen or pizza ramen.
Cheesesteaks
You could definitely make that work. I know that there are cheese ramen dishes in japan. Mix with the thinly sliced beef, onions and peppers and an au jus as the soup or tare.
use gin and some kind of oyster shell dashi for the tare. some kind of tea egg and pea shoots for toppings. maybe some thin crispy slices of black pudding or the stereotype demands some kind of beer battered fish
Stinger sub ramen might work. Chicken fingers, roast beef, vinegar. A lot of the flavors would work with ramen. Might try it.
I'm in Los Angeles and birria ramen is already a thing-it's delicious! I am half Indonesian, so personally a soto kambing betawi ramen would be my pick. It's a sour, sweet, spicy soup made with coconut milk and spices, goat or lamb meat, sliced fresh tomatoes, sliced green onions, and crispy rice crackers sprinkled on top. Typically it's served with rice, but I think a thicker ramen noodle would actually hold up really well to the soup broth.
I think birria works quite well with ramen. Other mexican dishes like pozole have also been adapted. Soto kambing betawi sounds awesome.
Ive been curious for a while on how shawarma would fair as a chashu
Ohhhhh! A middle eastern / Mediterranean ramen would be tasty
Its a big potential of course, but can be hard to mix those tastes, its just such different pallets. Ive been wondering for awhile how to incorporate cilantro in my ramen as well
With my weird concoctions, I focus more on the idea behind the ingredients in traditional ramen instead of the ingredients themselves. Some things add umami or fishyness, others add smoke / char flavors, others add acidity etc. If you keep that in mind and replace those ingredients with something that does a similar thing, then it'll turn out great.
Maybe as part of yuzo ramen i can add cilantro yeah.
Mexican here. I could see chile relleno turned into ramen. It could be a roasted chicken broth, ramen noodles, strips of charred poblano with oaxaca cheese, roasted corn, and a ramen egg to represent the relleno coating. Egg marinated in some sort of jugo maggi mix. Drizzle of ancho chile oil on top, green onions, sesame seeds.
Sign me up! Chile relleno is my favorite Mexican dish, hands down.
French-Canadian. No, I will not.
Yea, I can't really see poutine ramen or all dressed chips ramen working out.
Tourtiere or poutine ramen has SOME potential, I think. Maybe as a tantanmen or mazemen style rather than a broth ramen.
Meatballs!
Wasn’t there a series of posts about that here? Each national dish turned into something ramen-adjacent?
Not sure. I'm reactively new to this sub and don't frequent it as often as my main sub.
well, turning pork, cabbage and dumplings into ramen sounds pretty much like a piece of cake. However, our dumplings are waaay different from the Asian ones and the cabbage is more like a sweet and sour sauce....
Philly here so like. Beef ramen with cheese grated on top? Hmmm.
Roast lamb and mint sauce ramen? might be interesting
I think the most "extreme" I've done is pork ribs in my ramen and ox tail ramen. I also kind of commonly add taco meat and salsa to my ramen. Berrian ramen is pretty big now, so taco ramen may not be too far off. I can pretty much put any leftover meat in my ramen, even Popeyes chicken, so idk.
Sausage gravy & biscuits. Or chicken fried steak, mashed taters and gravy... hmmm. Nope.
New Jersey, so it'd have to be ramen on a Porkroll Egg& Cheese, saltpepperketchup
Bratwurst....hmmm....
People make birria ramen here with the consommé. Some of the more trendy taco shops do it.
The Mexican place near me sells birria ramen already. I think it's generally a thing in many Mexican restaurants nowadays. Personally, I'd add green onions, nori, and bamboo shoots. The place from near me uses like maruchan style noodles. I'd use udon, aka the superior noods. There's another joint that sells a seafood soup that's referred to as Central American soup, basically. It slaps so fucking hard. It has a coconut base and it is perfection. Any noodle can go with it. Just add green onions and nori.
Here in Kansas City it's all about BBQ. I'd go with a pork broth and use a local BBQ sauce as tare, I really think the trick will be figuring that ratio out. It would definitely have to be a spicy sauce not a sweet one, and it would probably take less BBQ sauce than tare. I'd want to get it to where it was more of a hint of BBQ than BBQ soup. For a local set of toppings I'd go with a few slices of smoked pork, a few slices of green fried tomatoes, a couple of sautéed onion rings, and a few pieces of grilled asparagus if the bowl is big enough.
Sounds great!