When you’re trying to save money (or don’t have money), instant ramen is basically the greatest food ever. Sure, it has the nutritional value of deep-fried cardboard, but who doesn’t love a good bite of extremely salty cardboard now and then?
Eating ramen in the same old way can get boring after a while, just like intimate activities with your mother can get boring. I mean, there’s only so many corns I can shave down on the bottom of her atrocious feet before even I get bored. So it’s important to doctor up ramen to make it more interesting. I already wrote about ramen a while back; this post is about how my sister and I eat ramen.
But I need stupidity to fuel my future stupid endeavors (my stupidity is a flat circle), so I thought to myself, “Dannis, how can you make ramen dumb and gross and not make this seem like a filler post on your extremely stupid food website?”
I decided to combine ramen with one of the dumbest foods on the planet: Jello Salad.
And thus, the Ramen Jello Salad was borne out of the anus of my mind. Actually, my whole mind is an anus.
But I couldn’t just make jello out of plain ramen, because that’s just silly.
There is a ramen dish from Korea called budae jjigae. Literally translated, it means “Army stew.” Budae jjigae was created around the time of the Korean war, when food was hard to scrounge up. People would throw a bunch of scraps of canned processed meat brought over by American soldiers along with kimchi into a pot of ramen noodles. Smoke ’em if you got ’em, I always say. There’s pretty much no wrong way to make budae jjigae.
And since my pantry and refrigerator are constantly full of garbage, well, perfect fit for ol’ Dannis Ree! Garbage in, garbage out! That means if you eat garbage, you poo garbage later.
The version of budae jjigae I created is one my cousin makes, so thank you, Michael, for the suggestion. You are a very good cousin.
The additional ingredients for today’s budae jjigae Ramen Jello Salad includes Neoguri brand ramen (my favorite), kimchi, Spam (also my favorite), hot dogs, and rice cakes. You can get these oval rice cakes from the Asian grocery store, usually in the refrigerated or frozen section. If you don’t have an Asian grocery store nearby, you can just use rat poison.
First, you have to chop up all the ingredients. If you’re going to turn ramen into Jello salad, you need to make sure all the pieces are easily sliceable when serving. Otherwise, you’re going to have to hack through all of the ingredients, turning your food into a mess, which isn’t what you want if you’re cooking something abhorrent from my website. Not at all.
Prepare the ramen broth as directed, and put the chopped up meats, kimchi, and rice cakes into the boiling liquid. I staged this photo to look like I was about to pour the ingredients into the saucepan. That’s what a good mommy food blogger does. I refrained from taking a picture of my genitals.
Let the mixture boil for 10 minutes. The rice cakes need to soften up in the cooking liquid, otherwise they’ll be too hard to chew.
I washed your mother’s underwear in the broth too; her knickers are already so stained it doesn’t matter what color they turn out. Knickers. I wish we still called them knickers, because that term gives me an instant boner. But the truth is, I always have a boner. I once went to the doctor to get my permaboner treated and my doctor just laughed at me and gave me a high five.
This is a food website.
After 10 minutes, fish out the rice cakes and dice them up. In a Jello salad they would be impossible to slice through, but since nobody’s making this anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You and your loved ones will eventually die and this planet will shrivel up and eventually get consumed by the sun. Good times, good times.
Next, drink a bunch of alcohol and toss the ramen in the pool of spicy liquid. Fart a bunch and do a rain dance.
After the ramen has cooked for 5 more minutes, the budae jjigae is pretty much ready to eat, if you’re going to just eat it that way. If you do eat it this way, you can brag to your friends that you know about authentic Korean food and they will respect you forever. Tell everyone you know that you truly understand ethnic cuisine, and that is how you become a famous food blogger. Me telling you this is like a magician giving away trade secrets.
I will be hunted by my peers for the rest of my days. I have to leave town. Now.
Let two packets of gelatin dissolve in cold water for about a minute, and then pour it into the budae jjigae. This is how you get the whole thing to firm up. You know that disgusting Jello salad people make for picnics and family gatherings? This is my version, except without all those dumb no-reason marshmallows and that birth defect-inducing artificial coloring.
Pour the whole thing, including all of your hopes and dreams, into some kind of mold. I couldn’t find my loaf pan so I had to use my brownie pan. Bonus points if you have a penis-shaped pan.
After 4 hours, this vulgar concoction should be set up. It’s not as Jello-like as I wanted, but whatever. It’s a brick. All good food comes in bricks. Stolen gold comes in bricks. Cheap marijuana comes in bricks. Cocaine comes in bricks. Everything good comes in bricks.
In order to get it out of the pan you might need to run the bottom under warm water so the whole thing loosens up. I run your mother’s bottom under warm water to loosen it up too.
To garnish, hide a poached egg behind the sliced jello salad, doodle a crude penis onto the plate with Easy Cheese, and enjoy.
And dear God, this mess is actually delicious. It’s rich from the fat content of the noodles (instant ramen noodles are fried before they’re packaged, if you didn’t know), the processed meat adds protein, salt, and richness, kimchi adds spice and crunch, and the rice cakes add a nice chew. Many times budae jjigae is topped with American cheese, so the Easy Cheese fills that role by being extremely delicious (don’t judge me!) and silky like a baby’s ass. Don’t eat babies asses.
Ramen Jello Salad is actually even easier to eat since you can just use a fork and not have to fuss with poking yourself in the eye with chopsticks.
After I took the plate away to eat the food, Harvey fell over. He wanted to live with the Ramen Jello Salad…forever. Also, yes, yes, I know. He’s filthy.
Just like your mother.
Ramen Jello Salad
- 1 package ramen of choice (except for Top or Maruchan ramen, fuck that and fuck you)
- 1 hot dog
- An indeterminate amount of Spam stolen from a war museum
- 2 fingers of locally foraged kimchi
- 10 rice cake slices
- 2 packets of gelatin
- Smashed up goat testicles
Chop up all the stuff, boil the stuff, mix gelatin into the stuff, put the stuff in the refrigerator. Throw goat testicles at the wall. Breakdance. Cry in the rain. Watch that shitty movie Avatar.
[By the way, my lovely friend Joyce (follow her on Instagram) interviewed me for my experience at the Gaper’s Block 3rd Annual Charity Hot Dog Cookoff. You can read that here. And Harvey and Mr. Bee made a cameo on an article about attachment objects (like stuffed animals and baby blankets) here.
I’m 34 and people are writing about me like I’m a mental health case study. I’d say I’m doing great these days.]
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