Food and generic food type discussion(s).

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It's funny how a general food thread starts and we are ONLY talking about ramen.

What is "top ramen"? Is that a brand or some term I just don't know?

I only use Mr. Noodles, basically because it's the only one I have found that is vegetarian. I like most of the flavours, but mushroom is my favourite. Right now also into the shrimp and curry chicken.

Top Ramen is a brand sold by Nissin in the US that has become a generic term like aspirin, kleenex, hoover, mobylette, and biro. Surprised that it's not in Canada, with mushroom flavor, I'm glad Mr. Noodles isn't available in America! I'm not knocking anyone who likes it, only that mushrooms frighten me.

There are a lot of potato chip flavors in the world that "we" don't have either, I wouldn't mind trying ketchup or dill pickle flavored

I recently found "haggis and black pepper" flavoured crisps in lidl! My mum bought them of course.

Nope, not in Canada. At least not in MY province that I know of. I love mushroom anything! Mmmmm!

You've never had ketchup or dill pickle chips before?? Both are really good, but I like dill pickle more. Yum!

US potato chip flavors:
Classic - ie, fried and salted
BBQ - an approximation of what barbecue sauce tastes like; probably as close to ketchup as we get
Sour cream & onion - an approximation of dipping a plain chip into dip made by mixing Lipton's onion soup mix into sour cream.

These are the basic flavors you'll find on every grocery store shelf.
Then there are proprietary flavors depending on the brand:

Cheddar and sour cream
Cajun spice
Salt and vinegar
Salt and cracked pepper
Chili-cheese
Habanero
Flamin' Hot
Salsa
Chile Limon

Then there's Pringle's:
Regular
BBQ
Cheddar
Jalapeno

Now that that's taken care of, how do you like your chicken nuggets; microwaved, baked or fried?
Pizza

Sometimes I think the world of food would be much better off if microwave ovens had never been invented. I'll use one for warming something up or defrosting it, but NEVER for cooking anything. Yuck.

Anyway, on to ramen noodles.

I don't get the idea about breaking them up. If I opened a packet of broken up ramen noodles, I would probably throw it away and grab another.

When I cook ramen noodles, I'll often cook some meat to go with it. For example, if it is shrimp ramen noodles, I'll thaw out, shell, and devein four or five shrimp and saute them in butter and a little onion powder or garlic powder and then put them on the bottom of the bowl that the ramen noodles will go in. If it is pork flavored, I'll cut some ham into bite sized slices, fry them, and put them in the bowl. Similar for chicken.

In the ramen noodles themselves, two minutes into the cooking I'll drip in the whites of two eggs into the simmering ramen noodles and then slowly stir them to give them an "egg drop" effect. (You can't do that with success in a microwave.) When finished cooking, stir in the spice mixture and then pour them into the bowl on top of the meat. If I have them, I chop up some green onions and sprinkle them on top.

This is far superior to just a regular cup of ramen noodles.

While I really wish there was a food section of this website, this will have to do for now.

I like hamburgers; the ones from Five Guys are awesome.

I thought about suggesting a "Food Board" a few days ago.



What's "Five Guys"?

I've often told people the way to make hamburgers that are better than just about any that you can buy in a restaurant anywhere. The few people who have tried it my way agree that it beats all other hamburgers they've ever had.

The thing to remember with hamburger meat is that the more you handle it, the worse will be the results. The secret to making a hamburger is to handle the hamburger meat just as little as you can possibly do.

So you start off with fresh hamburger meat. Hamburger goes bad quite quickly. If it is a couple of days old, you have to have a truly bad sense of taste not to taste it unless you cook the hell out of it. If you are using old hamburger meat, compress it into nice neat hamburger patties and cook it until it is nearly a hockey puck -- it is never going to be better than "barely edible" anyway.

Some people prefer to grind their own hamburger meat to make sure it is fresh. If you do this, it is best to get something that has a nice distribution of fat within the meat so that you can get by with a single grind. Remember that the more you handle it, the worse the hamburger.

As I understand it, many hamburger chains buy really lean meat and then add fat trimmed from other cattle to bring the fat content up to an acceptable level. Of course, all that extra grinding has very negative effects on the resulting quality. But if you are going to any hamburger chain for a hamburger, you aren't interested in a quality product anyway.

So you now have fresh hamburger meat. With the most minimum effort you can manage, dig out a chunk of meat for the hamburger and form it into a patty with the most minimal handling you can muster. Don't even think about trying to make a nice neat patty. If you want a nice neat patty, you might as well just go to any fast food chain and get their third rate hamburgers. My best hamburgers are always at least half an inch thick or more. Maybe closer to an inch thick.

A note about mixing in other crap to add flavor. Don't. It means over handling the meat and the best you can possibly end up with is a second rate hamburger. If you must mix in other crap into the hamburger, grind your own hamburger and add the crap to the grinder while you are grinding and let the grinder mix it in at that point. Anything else is crap.

Add salt and pepper to the top and bottom if you wish, but don't smash it in. Just sprinkle it on and leave it alone.

Some people prefer to make a small dimple on each side so that it will cook without puffing out as much in the center.

Cook the hambuger in a frying pan, under a broiler, or on an open fire. Don't even think of putting it in a microwave. If you went to this much trouble to make a good hamburger, trying to cook it in a microwave is totally crazy.

Make sure that the heat isn't too high. It will take a few minutes to cook, but that is fine. Cook it too high and you'll burn the outside while the inside is still raw.

Make absolutely sure that you never push down on the hamburger to squeeze out the juices. If you are going to do that, get a job at a fast food joint where your lack of talent will be greatly appreciated by people who have never had a good hamburger in their life.

When you take it off of the stove, let it rest for a minute or two. I usually set it on a paper or a cloth towel for the two minutes.

Put it on a hamburger bun and add on whatever you wish -- bacon slices, mustard, mayonaise, ketchup, Cholula hot sauce, onions, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, ..., it's all up to you.

Follow those instructions and you'll likely have the best hamburger you have ever eaten.

Five Guys is a fast-casual burger chain in North America.

Okay. Thanks.

The only fast food chain with outlets in my county that makes hamburgers is Dairy Queen. For that matter, the only other fast food chain with an outlet in my county is Pizza Hut, but I've never been to it and am unlikely to ever visit it.

I'll eat a Dairy Queen hamburger under three conditions:

1) I'm with someone else and we go there and I don't have anything to say about it.

2) I'm hungry and feeling too lazy to cook anything.

3) I've been sick. If I've been sick and can manage to eat one of their hamburgers at all, then I'm almost recovered.

There is a local place down the street that makes hamburgers, but their quality is all over the place. Sometimes you can get a real decent second rate hamburger there. Most of the time, though, it is drowning in grease and I am ready to throw it away after a couple of bites.

The only other restaurant in town is a regular sit down restaurant. It used to be about average, but it has declined rather sharply in the last couple of years. And it is highly overpriced since they have to keep raising their prices to make up for the fewer and fewer customers who will go there.

I am a foodie, I will admit.

The only noodles I will eat are mi goreng instant noodles bbq chicken flavour. I cook 2 packets of noodles with hard a cup chopped veg (usually peas and corn for convenience), drain reserving about a quarter cup of water. Then mix 3 packs of wet and dry seasonings through it with the water, cracked egg and some chopped up left over chicken if I have some.

i do the mexican or indian or chinese philosophy of cooking. bread/rice/corn chip/flour tortilla base, some kind of meat seasoned with some kind of sauce, some kind of vegetable, optionally some kind of cheese. toss everything into oiled pan, stir until cooked. eat. i put hot sauce on everything.

also breakfast foods. eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, orange juice.

Mi goreng tastes even better when you throw in some fried eggs, chopped up scallions, fish cakes and a dash of sriracha sauce.

I'm vegetarian, so don't eat chicken nuggets. It's safe to say, I definitely wouldn't like anything like that microwaved though. Ick!

Pizza is great. My favourite is plain cheese, but sometimes I'll get toppings like mushrooms, green peppers, and pineapple. Might sound odd, but that is a great combination!


And I see a hamburger discussion:

Like I said, I'm vegetarian BUT I LOVE Burger King veggie burgers. Or I should say, I love CANADIAN Burger King veggie burgers. I had one at an American airport earlier this year, and they are NOT the same as Canadian. They don't look or taste anything alike. The Canadian version is way better. I get them with pepperjack cheese, mayo, onions, pickles, and lettuce. Mmmmm!

The ironic thing is that both patties were made in Canada. I'm curious to know if one restaurant grills it while the other microwaves it. Then again airport restaurants are a 'slap and run' affair anyway, you're better off grabbing a pretzel at that stage. Although I would exclude the restaurant in the middle of LAX from that category.

No input from anyone on nuggets? I prefer them crunchy so I'll bake them when I have the time. My favorite condiments on nuggets are Open Pit BBQ sauce or the Buffalo sauce they sell at Dollar Tree