Late Night Half-Broke Pasta Carbonaramen (Patreon)

Late Night Half-Broke Pasta Carbonaramen

I was once mostly top ramen by volume. Most of us were, unless we have had very cushy lives indeed. But this cheap af staple can be made exponentially more delicious—and only a couple of bucks more expensive—by kind of reverse-engineering the much better sauces of a nice ramen house.

You can also skip the Italian pasta part and just do this with your standard ramen for the noodles and toss in some veggies or a soft-boiled egg or pork belly and have a VERY reasonable approximation of said nice ramen house in about five minutes at home.

QUARANTINE CUISINE REIGNS SUPREME.

There is, believe it or not, no dairy at all in the dish pictured above. The creamy consistency is achieved by emulsifying egg yolks and aioli (or mayo if you’re not feeling fancy today). I would recommend experimenting with various proteins—chicken is always great, but strips of medium-rare steak or seared scallops or shrimp or pancetta would all be amazing. Those are getting pricey, though, so feel free to just eat this as is.

Basically, my friend Cylia and I invented it because we were drinking too much one night, and no regrets have ever been had.

Important note: do not add salt to this at any stage. If it’s not salty enough when you sit down to eat, add it then, but the ramen spice packets are VERY high in sodium, and especially if you add in bacon, you really want to be able to control the salt level at every stage. If it tastes too salty in the pan, add a few squeezes of lime juice to neutralize it.

LET’S GET COLLEGIATE UP IN THIS B.

Ingredients

One spice packet(s) from your favorite ramen flavor, be that in the bag or in the cup.

2-3 strips of bacon, pork belly, or pancetta, depending on how your wallet feels about you right now

Half a yellow or white onion, sliced into thin rounds

1 heaping tablespoon miso paste (I use light)

1-2 teaspoons ginger paste

2-3 garlic cloves, mushed in a press or diced very fine

3 tablespoons mayo or aioli (I used Trader Joe’s Chili Lime Mayo, but that’s seasonal, anything in that school of flavor is fantastic)

3 egg yolks

Several healthy shakes or grinds of black pepper

A little hot sauce wouldn’t go wrong but isn’t necessary

Half a packet of bucatini, linguini, or your favorite long skinny noodles

Handful of chopped parsley or other sharp green herb

ROLL UP TO THE CLUB LIKE WHAT UP I GOT A BIG PAN

Prepare pasta as per packet instructions. Retain 1 cup pasta water.

In a large skillet, fry pork (or other meat) until brown and toothsome. Remove and set aside. Sautee onions on medium in remaining fat until translucent and starting to crisp slightly and brown at the edges.

While onions cook, whisk spice packet, miso, ginger, garlic, aioli, pepper, and yolks in a bowl until well blended and slightly gloopy. Temper with a slow trickle of hot pasta water.

Crumble pork or other meat into the pan with the onion, then add pasta with a couple of tablespoons of water and stir well to coat noodles. Turn heat to lowest setting, pour in tempered sauce, and turn to coat fully. turn off heat, sprinkle parsley over the pan, and adjust flavor with lime juice and pepper if necessary.

Serve and regret nothing with us!