Perfect Combination: Cheesy Instant Ramyun Noodles and Homemade Milk Tea
August 24, 2016
After (more than) a 6-month long search, I finally managed to find uncooked tapioca pearls! I have been making homemade milk tea (all thanks to YouTube recipes!) since late last year and it has always lacked that extra "oomph" factor because of the missing pearls. Wonderbake UP Town Center is heaven-sent because out of all the supermarkets and baking shops I've gone to for the past months, this is the only shop where I have found my precious pearls.
Since I was so happy with my buy and I am always craving for milk tea, my brothers and I decided to make cheesy ramyun and homemade milk tea for this afternoon's snacks -- one of my favorite food combinations ever (the other one is pizza and Coke)!
The finished products! The ramyun looks creamy (and less spicy) because of the grated cheese we put. Tip: To make easy cheesy ramyun, put some grated quickmelt cheese in it when it's still warm (fresh from the stove/pot!). The cheese will melt in a few seconds and will mix surprisingly well with the spiciness of the ramyun.
Our afternoon snacks~ I swear it tastes better than it looks! Spicy ramyun yet has that cheesy creamy kick and "legit" pearl milk tea. My kind of comfort food!
Our choice of noodles for the day! We have a variety of Korean noodles in our cupboard but we decided to go for spicy ramyun this time. 2 packets is enough for my 2 brothers and I. If we were hungrier though, we would make it 3!
Making instant ramyun is easy peasy. Put everything in a pot of boiling water and wait for the noodles to cook! We were also waiting for the water to boil in the smaller pot for cooking the tapioca pearls. Later on, we realized that we should have cooked the pearls first because based on the instructions on the pearls' packaging, the preparation + cooking of the pearls would take up 1.5-2 hours of our time! (!!)
We only used less than 1/4 of the packet of tapioca pearls because we would only be making 3 glasses of milk tea!
Homemade milk tea ingredients: Lipton Yellow Label Tea International Blend tea bags (we used 3!), condensed milk, ice cubes (not in photo).
We put the tea, condensed milk and ice in the cocktail shaker then shaked it for around a minute. We have no specific measurements for the ingredients since we let our taste buds do the deciding. If it tastes too sweet, we add more tea. If it's too bland, we add more milk.
The ramyun was already cooked but we were still boiling the tapioca pearls. Wrong decision -_- Next time, next time! The proper way to cook the tapioca pearls is to put it in boiling water (1 packet = 7L of water), stir it until the pearls float, cover the pot and let the pearls cook in medium heat for 30 minutes, turn off the stove and leave the pearls for 25 minutes (still in the pot and NOT removing the cover/lid). After 25 minutes, when the pearls are still warm, put it under running water then soak it in brown sugar for 20 minutes. After all those steps, that's when you can put the pearls on any drink!
Since my brothers and I were impatient and our ramyun was starting to get cold already, we "improvised". I stirred the pearls until it floated, let it cook for around 15 minutes under high heat (LOL), then checked and tasted it if it was already soft enough to consume. Since it passed my standards, I put it under running water then soaked it in brown sugar for 5 mins. Tapioca pearls done in 30 minutes, what's up! Don't imitate me, though! Some pearls were hard to chew but hey... still tasted great. Not bad for a first timer!
Our afternoon snacks~ I swear it tastes better than it looks! Spicy ramyun yet has that cheesy creamy kick and "legit" pearl milk tea. My kind of comfort food!
Writing this at such a late hour is making my mouth water~ I'll probably post more homemade food experiments in the future. I am no cook (read: I don't really cook) but I try to experiment with food when I get these cravings lol.
Oh, and I will be working on my South Korea 2016 travel posts! Part 1 will be up within the week so watch out for that!
Good night and see you later :)
0 comments