Safe…

It certainly comes as no surprise that the Japanese were the first to come up with the idea of instant noodles, as we know them today – those workaholics and in today’s societies, instant noodles are a life saver for many – young students and working singles especially, with their tight and busy schedules or they are either too lazy to cook or they cannot cook…or it is simply not their kind of thing. Just look at all those shelves in any supermarket – that would bear testimony to the fact that they’re selling like hot cakes or so to speak.

However, there have been people dropping by my blog and saying that the noodles are coated with wax or whatever and we must boil the noodles first and then, drain away the water…and after that, we will have to cook the soup before putting the noodles back in to eat. Well, let us take a look at the ingredients…

I do not see wax mentioned anywhere – maybe it comes under “permitted food conditioners”, I wouldn’t know. I do not see monosodium glutamate being mentioned as well and I am pretty sure they contain a lot of that. It seems that they have diplomatically grouped that under “flavor enhancers”. Looking at the lists, it is quite obvious that the consumption of these things should be kept to the bare minimum…and not every day like it is a staple diet or something.

On my part, I am not too crazy about these noodles and that is why I will always have a lot of extras added – an egg, at least, to eat together with the noodles. Nonetheless, I always have some in the pantry to cook when the need arises, for instance, when there’s nothing in the fridge and nothing in the house that I can have for breakfast or it is raining heavily and I would rather not go out for dinner for fear of getting drenched and soaked to the skin. However, I usually do not bother to cook the noodles and drain away the water – I reckon that since I do not consume the stuff that frequently, just once in a while, it is all right – and the only time I would do that would be when I’m having the mee goreng variety. Come to think of it, this may be a wiser choice when it comes to instant noodles considering that you have no choice but to drain away the water that you cook the noodles in.

Other than the aforementioned, this is something that you can do as well which is to serve the noodles dry. What I did was to empty the sachet of seasoning onto a plate and the chili paste/oil that came with the particular flavour that I was cooking. Use only half the packet of seasoning or else it will be too salty and this, I would say, is a good thing as you would be reducing your intake of those so-called “permitted” ingredients. I added a bit of oil with which I had fried some sliced shallots to mix everything together and to facilitate the tossing of the noodles later. Needless to say, the oil would give the noodles that extra fragrance as well and would certainly bring the taste to a whole new level.

After cooking the noodles, I drained away the water and tossed them well with the ingredients. Nope, I did not bother to rinse the noodles under the tap and putting them back into the boiling water to heat them up again…but you may do that if you want. Once the noodles were ready, I fried an egg to go with it and served…

Was it good? Well, I would say it was…and a welcome change from the usual soupy version.

As for how much safer this is, I don’t really know – probably a bit…but whatever it is, as with everything else, moderation is the key.