Transforming Top Ramen

This week's challenge: create a gourmet meal with $7 or less using Top Ramen as the main ingredient. Here's the breakdown:

The Ingredients

Inspiration cuisine/culture: Asian

Attempted taste profiles: salty and sweet

Ingredients to buy: Oriental Top Ramen ($0.38), Stir Fry Veggie Mix ($1.48)

Ultimate goal: Create a gourmet (loose term, right?) stir fry with good flavor to disguise the Ramen noodles.

I chose an Asian-inspired cuisine route because I had the most experience cooking with noodles, rice, and chicken, and thus creating a stir fry gave me the best chance to turn anything I cooked into "gourmet." [I don't have the best reputation as a cook, and when I told my husband I had to create a gourmet meal he laughed, until I told him he was my taste tester.] I used three additional ingredients I already had in my cupboard: Vegetable oil, a can of Kirkland Chicken Breast from Costco, and Yoshida's Original Gourmet Sauce (it had "gourmet" in the title!) I figured the addition of these three ingredients would still have kept my budget under $7 if I had purchased them in the store. And thus began my attempt at a meal.

Adding Stir Fry Veggies

Chicken breast & veggies in wok 

Step 1: Boil 2 cups water, Add Top Ramen noodles, and stir occasionally for 3 minutes. [*note, the silver package of powder "oriental" flavoring should be promptly discarded in the trash.]

Step 2: Drain Ramen noodles; set aside. 

Step 3: Heat about 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a wok over medium-low heat.

Adding Yoshida sauce

Step 4: Add 1/2 package of Stir Fry Veggie Mix. Stir until veggies are golden-brown.

Don't forget the Ramen!

Step 5: Open can of Kirkland Chicken Breast; Drain. Add chicken breast and Yoshida sauce (about 1/2 cup) to veggies in wok. Mix well.

Step 6: Add Ramen Noodles; Mix well. Let stir fry concoction mingle over medium-low heat for a few minutes, to ensure saturation of Yoshida sauce into bland Ramen noodles.

Step 7: Serve stir fry to yourself and a taste tester, and record the results.

Results:

The finished product!

Alright, so the stir fry didn't end up looking too terrible. It looked like it could pass as a hearty side dish, even. Upon tasting, my husband decided that it was . . . still a little lacking. He said I needed to add some heat to the dish (recommending chili peppers or hot sauce, perhaps) as it was a little bland, despite the Yoshida sauce. His direct quote about the dish as a whole was, "well, it's better than regular Top Ramen." My own taste buds found the dish lacking as well-- I could pick up on the saltiness that I'd been going for, and the sweet-tang of the Yoshida sauce, but the Ramen noodles were characteristically mushy and bland. We both, however, finished our bowls. 

So, I'd like to think I transformed Top Ramen into a creative, tasteful dish (I had good intentions?), but my taste tester and I still found it lacking in the heat and spice one would expect from Asian-inspired cooking. Points for trying? It was, after all, a cheap meal that differed from the straight-forward college meal of Ramen noodles with salt-laden flavor packet.

I'm leaving the "gourmet" status of the meal up for debate.