This is a recipe that uses instant noodles for a brothy soup. Yes.
Instant noodles – and yes I’m talking little silver, flavour sachet and all – are always in my house because sometimes a bowl of noodles is what you deserve. Life is hard, don’t make it harder by not succumbing to the wonders of instant noodles. They take zero brainpower to get from packet to plate, and when the world feels like it’s resting on the tip of your patience, that’s exactly what you want of an evening.
But often I do unspeakable things to a packet of instant noodles. Unspeakable and ungodly things, that take it from being just a plate of sloppy noodles (fabulous though they are like this) to a sensible but admittedly, silly, noodle soup.
Yes it’s a silly soup because it uses bloody instant noodles – but it’s a silliness I indulge in, for all of its campness.
In basic terms, is this recipe asking you to cook the instant noodles in more water than the packet tells you to? Yes it is, but it’s also so much more than this. The noodles (chicken, thanks for asking) should always be cooked in more water than the packet tells you anyway because that water instruction is and always has been a lie, am I right?
It’s never enough water!!
And then all the noodles stick and cloy together like one big tangly lump of noodles nonsense, and it ruins everything, including my night, and then I’m miserable because there are few things in life more harrowing than a bunch of noodles stuck together. So what do I do, because I’m a strong, independent Capricorn who does not fear going against the water instruction on a packet of instant noodles?
I go in the complete opposite direction.
Purists would scream at me for this recipe. The wanton use of instant noodles, using the little flavour packet for the broth, the bacon, the butter, the general nerve of it all… let ’em scream. If you need a deep bowl of searingly hot, salty, calming noodles, how you get there is truly up to you, I’m just offering you a route that means you have the basis of something wonderful as it is, but also the start for a thousand other ideas you could have depending on what is in your fridge.
It’s slurpy, it’s salty, it’s sour, it’s sweet, it serves one, and it’s super instant.
Feel no way about using instant noodles curious and extraordinary ways. Don’t overthink it. Go one step further and even eat the damn thing with chopsticks. The only non-negotiable thing is to drink the broth straight from the bowl using your hands once the noodles have gone.
Serves 1 lucky person
1 tbs butter
2 slices bacon – cut into strips
1 tsp honey
400ml water
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 lime
1 packet chicken-flavoured instant noodles
1/2 tsp sesame oil
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
- In a wide frying pan with high sides, melt the butter until foaming and then toss in the bacon with some freshly scrunched black pepper.
- Cook until the bacon is near frazzled, that’s to say, sizzling, thoroughly coated in foamy butter, and catching and caramelising at the edges, but not entirely burnished and crispy.
- Now drop in the honey and stir the bacon so that every piece is coated, cooking for only a further minute or two so not to burn the honey. Remove the bacon to a bowl or plate to rest, leaving as much of the honey, butter, and bacon fat in the pan as possible.
- Get a saucepan which will be big enough to hold all of the remaining ingredients and scrape the fat from the frying pan into it. A rubber utensil will always be the best for this – I want every last bacony, honeyed morsel in this saucepan.
- Now to this saucepan of fat, add the water, soy sauce, fish sauce, and the juice of one lime, and the chicken-flavoured dust from the little silver foil packet in the instant noodles, stirring to combine. Bring this pan to a boil, and then add the instant noodles themselves.
- Boil for 2 – 3 minutes until the noodles have softened and each strand is loosened from another. Remove from the heat and pour into serving bowls.
- Serve with pieces of the rested bacon and a little drizzle of sesame oil and the dried chilli flakes, if using.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 