Happy Labor Day Weekend, Have A F*ckin Egg

A marinated egg, even.

We guess you’re all too busy celebrating the student debt jubilee to notice that Joe Bidenflation has about doubled the price of eggs over the last year. Considering the other grocery price increases, we’ve been reduced to eating hobo beans, store-brand breakfast cereal, and thin oat gruel. Of course we still have the stalwart of the pantry: the ramen noodle.

We have for many years cracked and dropped an egg into the pot a little bit before the noodles finish and stirred it all up, but with a little forethought and preparation, today’s recipe is much more delicious and impressive. An egg boiled for six minutes has a wonderful consistency. A few years back they started calling them “jammy eggs” but we reject that characterization because jam has the seeds and fruit solids and they just didn’t use “jelly-y eggs” because that sounds gross. Nevertheless, be careful because they are very delicate to peel and handle. Enjoy this small piece of bourgeois comfort as the middle class continues to evaporate in these times of whatever the fuck is going on.

FITZ’S RAMEN EGGS

Eggs (figure out how many bowls of soup you are going to make and determine if each person will want a whole egg or just half in their bowl and do the math accordingly)

Soy sauce

Rice vinegar

Mirin wine

Sesame oil

Fresh ginger

One clove of garlic

Boil enough water to cover your eggs; do not put them in until it is boiling.

Boil eggs for six minutes and six minutes only. We like to carefully lower our eggs into the boiling water with our spider strainer and leave them in there while they boil for easy lifting out of the heat at the correct time.

Move eggs directly from boiling water into an ice water bath. This stops the cooking, and the old wives’ tale is that it makes it easier to peel, specifically with regard to the membrane between the shell and the white.

Take great care in peeling the eggs. Remember that they are delicate, jelly-y eggs. These are not the rubbery white and chalky green yolk 15-minute eggs of your tortured youth. Gently crack the shell all around, start peeling from the fat end, and put it under the faucet (not at full blast, you’re going to burst the egg, COME ON!) if that membrane isn’t coming off the white easy. It is okay if the white breaks a little bit if the yolk stays intact.

In a ziploc sandwich bag, make the marinade. There are no set amounts here, mostly ratios. We generally do equal parts soy sauce and vinegar, half as much mirin, and just a few drops of sesame oil. Use a microplane grater on the garlic and ginger, and be sure to scrape all that delicious pulp into the bag. If you don’t have mirin, add a little bit of honey or a pinch of sugar. You want it spicy? Put some kind of chile flake or hot sauce in, whatever, nobody cares.

Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Christ, Fitz, why don’t you just put the plastic directly into the ocean, you environment-murdering bastard with your ziploc bags?”

Fair enough; it is wasteful to use sandwich bags, but it minimizes the amount of marinade you need to make because you can cinch it around the eggs. The other option is to make enough marinade in a container where you can submerge your egg. Make your choices and live with them.

Place the peeled eggs in the bag with the marinade; get all the air out and close the bag. We will sometimes twist the bag up and tie with a twist tie or piece of string to keep the egg in the juice (you know like they do with bags of drugs?), and then we put the bag into an empty jam jar and into the fridge.

Let it sit there for a few hours up to a week, until you are going to have ramen.

Prepare your ramen according to the package’s instructions, or according to the method you have painstakingly developed over the decades. We like the Shin black label and the Sapporo Ichiban tonkatsu flavor , but certainly we are not above a Top Ramen or Maruchan (especially in these trying times; thanks a lot Joe Brandon!).

Put an egg (cut in half or whole) into each bowl before you serve out the soup, so it warms up a little bit before you eat it.

Other accoutrements we use: scallions, edamame, julienned carrots (maybe soaked in rice vinegar with some sesame seeds?), crispy tofu cubes, kimchi, radishes, frozen peas (added just before the soup is done), etc. What do YOU like to add to your ramen?

OPEN THREAD!