Samyang Tangle Creamy Mushroom Flavour Pasta

Tagged: Ham, Samyang, Mushroom flavour, Lettuce

Now that we've left the Nongshim era, I guess it's time to enter our mushroom era.

Today I was a hungry gal so I looked for one of the bigger noodle blocks in my stash. A lot of the ones I'm really interested in are so tiny! They might make better Quick Bites than full lunches. This was one of the ones I ended pulling up, and I decided to go for it because I'm in a mushroom kick. Can we also point out the package says "Pasta with creamy-flavour sauce and mushroom", specifically? Like the sauce's flavour is "creamy". I thought that was funny.

The instructions for this one imply cooking over a stove, which, if you know me, I avoid. If you don't know me and this is your first time reading the blog, welcome! Fire is scary.

I say "imply" on purpose, because I've always had a bugbear with noodle instructions where it goes "add boiling water" and then, "remove from heat". When did we add heat? You know what they say about people who assume, O Instant Noodle Packaging.

Samyang displays their commitment to their intended cooking process by helpfully numbering each additional packet.

In any case, since it seemed like extra heat is on the order for cooking these noodles, instead of my usual process of letting only the boiling water do its thing, I also popped it in for a quick couple of minutes in the microwave. The flakes get boiled together with the noodles first. Since I wanted to give these a fighting chance at being creamy, I then drained most of the water away before adding the sauce and the powder as instructed.

The flakes get pretty lost in the middle of everything. I'm not sure how much I would miss them if manufacturers omitted the flake packet entirely, like I've said before I wish it didn't feel like an afterthought amount of it. The noodles being flat help them be not entirely unremarkable but that's about all they have going for them. The sauce did turn out quite creamy, and it has a bit more of a mushroom flavour than the previous entry, but it's still quite mild. It's nice, and would probably be enough for most people on its own, but I feel like they're pulling punches here. Also, there's a funny powdery aftertaste that caught my attention. Not a powdery texture, mind you, it's more like it tasted of it. Does that make sense? Is this thing even on?

Heavy is the hand which loads a salad onto my plates.

I'm not going to add mushroom to mushroom this time. I figured a good compliment would be some cured prosciutto we had leftover, which I diced into small chunks, and some pre-washed iceberg lettuce. I love myself some crispy salad.

And I was right, it did make for a bowl of noodles so tasty I barely stopped to think before I finished the whole thing. The flavour of the prosciutto kinda dominated some of it, which makes me wonder whether it was too salty, or the noodles weren't salty enough. I thought these things were supposed to have enough sodium to put me in the hospital.

Meal Components

The Scientific Method

• Grumble about preparation instructions
• Pour boiling water over noodles and flakes, then microwave for 2 minutes
• Drain excess water
• Add sauce and powder, then mix vigorously
• Dice some prosciutto into small bits
• I know, I know, you've made yourself more things to wash later but trust me it's worth it
• Add enough lettuce to taste (lots)
• Enjoy!

This didn't particularly rock my world, but it'll end up high up there because it did taste more of mushroom than the Koka one. I'm really hoping for something exceptional to take up the top spots more decisively.