Recreating the Spicy Ramen Flavor (Specifically Shin Ramyun)

[lkhorgan]

Hey all,

I'm trying to recreate the flavor of the Shin Ramyun spice packet. A few months ago, coming home tired from school, I made an excellent (to me, although it may not sound great to everyone) quick soup out of frozen potstickers, napa cabbage, chicken broth, and the flavor packets from a couple of packages of Shin Ramyun. I'd like to be able to recreate this without wasting tons of ramen noodles, and I was wondering if anyone had experimented with or had an idea of how to make the flavor/spice packet in a larger quantity.

The website lists the ingredients as:
Salt, Monosodium, Glutamate, Beef Extract Powder, Sugur, Corn Starch, Soy Source Powder(Soy Bean, Salt), Garlic, Ginger, Onion, Black Pepper, Red Pepper.

Thanks!

[bitsubeats]

I would use beef dashida and gochugaru. dashida is just beef bouillon with loads and loads of msg. You can also add a little soy sauce to taste. If you want a more fishy flavour you can add anchovy dashida.

btw: gochugaru is korean red pepper flakes

[lkhorgan]

Oo, thanks bitsubeats! I assume these would both be available at a fairly large asian market like 99 Ranch? If so, I will experiment this weekend.

[another_adam]

Should be-- but be sure you get the very fine powder (bright red color), not the larger flake kind (darker in color, more granular)! It works best in soup if you mix it with the oil at the start of cooking (when you're getting ready to put in the veggies) rather than trying to add it to the water directly. You may find you need to add a little sweetness to round out the flavor, too.

For a different take on a similar idea, you could use whatever soup base flavor you prefer, and then instead of chili powder, you could add a splash of rayu oil, to taste.

[bitsubeats]

good idea on the sweetness....how about a little gochujang mixed with a bit of sugar?

[hannaone]

Gochujang is pretty good but it gives a different flavor to the soup mix.

Ikhorgan:
Bitsubeats and another adam are right.
Dashida has all the ingredients except ginger and red pepper. It is also very concentrated so a little goes a long way.
Just pick up some ginger powder along with the dashida and red pepper powder and you're set.
Mix the ginger powder with the pepper in either an oil base, or into a bit of soy sauce before adding to the soup water.

[another_adam]

Yes, I really like to use a combination of gochujang (paste) and gochugaru (powder), with a little sugar or malt syrup, for a lot of things, like ddeokbokki or kimchi jjigae. The gochujang makes a somewhat... heartier (? richer? thicker?) broth. Not quite the same as the soup from powder, but I'd definitely recommend giving it a try!

[hannaone]

The doenjang in the paste, and fermenting of the chili definitely adds more depth to whatever it's added to.
I suppose you could accomplish almost the same by adding a small amount of doenjang or miso, but then you'd be missing the flavor of fermented chili.