If you’re running out of ideas for easy-to-prepare and quick cooking meals, this one is ready to serve in ten minutes flat. It’s that fast so long as you have top-quality ingredients.
The wontons are store-bought. Well, in a manner of speaking. There’s a purveyor of Chinese-style dumplings on Instagram that we discovered in 2020 and we had been regular customers since. The shrimp wontons are especially good, and the price is even better, that we never bothered making them from scratch.
To start making the dish, make your dashi broth as usual (dashi granules were used here). Drop in sliced shiitake caps and spinach, and leave to simmer.
In another pan, boil water and blanch fresh ramen (we get the noodles from a Japanese grocery in the neighborhood). You’re just refreshing the noodles here so as soon as the water boils again, take the pan off the stove, drain the noodles and place in a bowl.
By the time the noodles are in the bowl, the spinach should have sufficiently wilted. Drop the the shrimp wontons (no need to thaw) and simmer for two minutes. They will be fully cooked at the end of two minutes. It takes longer if you steam them but when they are dropped directly in simmering broth, the cooking time is reduced. If you leave them in the dashi broth longer, the wrappers will burst.
Take a quarter spoon of the hot broth and dissolve the miso paste in it. Turn off the stove, pour in the diluted miso and stir.
If you prefer to enjoy the dish without the noodles, the miso soup with shrimp wontons, spinach and shiitake may be served at this point. But I wanted them with noodles so I scooped out the wontons, shiitake and spinach and dropped them on top of the ramen I had placed in the bowl earlier. I ladled in the miso soup and my one-bowl meal was ready.
Miso ramen with shrimp wonton and shiitake
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon dashi granules
- 3 fresh shiitake - stems discarded and caps sliced
- 1 handful spinach
- fresh ramen - enough for one generous serving
- frozen shrimp wontons - as many as you like
- 1 tablespoon miso paste
- salt
Instructions
- Boil five cups of water in a kettle.
- Pour two cups of boiling water into a pot and stir in the dashi granules.
- With the heat set to low, drop in the shiitake and spinach, and leave to simmer.
- Pour the remaining water into a second pot and blanch the ramen. When the water boils, take the pot off the stove, drain the noodles and transfer to a bowl.
- Drop the frozen wontons into the pot with the shiitake and spinach, simmer for two minutes then turn off the heat.
- Take a quarter cup of the hot broth and pour into a small bowl. Add the miso paste and stir until dissolved.
- Pour the diluted miso paste into the pot and stir.
- Taste the broth and add salt, if needed.
- Scoop out the wontons, shiitake and spinach into the bowl with the noodles.
- Ladle in the miso soup and serve.
