Nongshim Chapagetti

Tagged: Mushroom, Nongshim, Soybean flavour, Peppers

I know right now it looks like I'm favouring one brand over all others but I swear I picked this one blind from my "ramen science" box. That's right, I have a cardboard box full to the brim with assorted noodles I've picked to make blog posts about, and it's labelled clearly with a Sharpie.

I'm glad I ended up picking this one out because it aligned perfectly with the additions I had available today. If I can't immediately tell what flavour a pack of noodles is going to be, I just pick it up anyway to try it out. As I've learned, the brand name is a portmanteau of chajangmyŏn and spaghetti, with the flavour being based on a soybean paste.

The size of the noodle block on this one is particularly impressive.

The instructions for this one call for cooking the noodles on a stove, or at least they imply so in not so many words since they say to "remove from heat after 5 minutes". Since the stove is where we keep the fire and fire is big scary for a mere guest in the kitchen such as myself, I prepared them my usual way: with boiling water from an electric kettle which could never possibly harm me, and gave them a couple more minutes in the microwave to cook further.

After draining most of the water from the noodles and rehydrated nondescript "flakes", I added the other two sachets of soup base powder and oil. I was expecting the oil to be the component that gave it such a dark colour, but was surprised to find the darkest instant noodle flavour powder I've ever seen. Once the resulting paste coated the noodles nicely I took a few bites to try it out.

The flavour is much milder than I expected from the look, but it's a nice, very savoury and almost slightly bitter flavour. It's not something like anything I remember having before (even when thinking back to other kinds of soybean paste) and I was quite pleased with it from the start. Looking it up online I see some descriptions of these noodles as "sweet" and I can't say I got that out of mine at all. The noodles are thicker than your usual instant, which is where the "spaghetti" from the name supposedly comes from, but the texture didn't remind me of pasta at all. It's a bit chewier, which I do personally prefer, and if I had to I'd say these are closer to something like a skinnier Udon.

Definitely one of my more photogenic bowls of noodles.

What I had to add to these today were some leftover roasted peppers from a home-cooked meal (not by me, perish the thought), and another batch of my wife's meal-prepped mushrooms. Once I got them into the bowl I was amazed at how close the noodles looked to the serving suggestion picture on the package, that certainly doesn't happen often with me. The mushrooms complemented the savouriness incredibly well, and the roasted peppers did add a bit of a balancing sweetness.

If I had anything to improve on this meal, it's that I would've kept more of the noodle water than the directions ask you to. As for the flakes, it was such a small portion I completely forgot about them until I found a few bits at the bottom of the bowl. I think some of it was supposed to be black soybeans? Like with a lot of other noodles, they felt like barely an afterthought.

Meal Components

The Scientific Method

• Dig around in a box far above your head so you can't see what noodles you're picking and end up biased anyway.
• Unpack everything and prepare the noodles and flakes somewhat as instructed. Avoid fire.
• Fumble around to drain the water from the bowl without losing any of the tiny insignificant flakes.
• Mix in the other packets and be pleasantly surprised at new flavours.
• Bring in the additions that make it a lunch.
• Enjoy!

This one is gonna sit pretty high up there in the ranking and I'm definitely going to keep it around as one of my staples. I wonder if the bowl variant of it comes with any more flakes.