"Pickle Rick" Ramen

The Rick and Morty craze has taken the world by storm. They have influenced McDonalds to bring back their Mulan Szechuan sauce and have driven some fans insane trying to get their hands on it. But life is too short to hunt down dipping sauce. When life gives you pickles, you turn yourself into one.

However, since pickle technology is very limited at this time, turning myself into a pickle is not a realistic goal. Instead, I did the next best thing. Make Pickle Ramen.

This one was a little challenging as a briney pickle does not seem to go with Japanese food let alone ramen, but where there is a will there is a way. I wanted to make the pickle the focus of the bowl so I used Shio Ramen as my base. It also helped that I have stocked up a bunch of Shio Tare in my refrigerator. A pickle by itself would be a very odd thing to add to ramen, so I had to upgrade it. I thought for a long time on how I could make it work. In udon, you will sometimes see kakiage, or a fried shreded vegetable fritter, added to a bowl. This felt very fitting for the pickle, however by shredding the pickle will cause it to lose its texture. But I was on to something. Why not just fry pickly spears?

Everything else came naturally as I assembled my bowl. Because this bowl was inspired by Rick and Morty, instead of my normal garlic and shallot oil, I added szechuan chili oil and spices. It was a no brainer. If you were on the edge of making pickle ramen like me, just do it. It is worth!