A review by squid_vicious
Let's Make Ramen! by Hugh Amano, Sarah Becan

3.0

When the weather gets a little cold, I do love a nice, big comforting bowl of soup. And when I don’t have a ton of time or energy left at the end of the day, I often end up making some ramen: there’s always a sad veggie or two left in the crisper that needs to be used up, and a dollop of butter and curry paste brightens up any soup stock. Easy peasy!

When I saw this book, I figured it would make for a great source of inspiration and new ideas to pimp up my fall and winter ramen routine. I also fell in love with the format: I remember having a couple of illustrated cookbooks as a child, which were really great to teach children about basic food preparation (it certainly made it look more fun than regular cookbooks!), so the idea of blending comic books and recipes struck me as pure genius.

While this book is gorgeous and informative, I have to say it seriously lacks in vegetarian options!! While I do eat meat from time to time, it isn’t a big part of my diet or cooking preferences. There is only one vegetarian broth recipe, and while I understand that it's not strictly traditional, a few variations would have been nice. And while there are many recipes for the different meaty garnishes to add to a ramen bowl, again there are very few alternative ideas for meat-free versions included in the book… The meat-balls and marinated eggs recipes look absolutely scrumptious.

While I am not quite ready for the very time-consuming process of making my own broth, I love that the author thought to include a way to make home-made “instant” ramen broth and store it so you don’t have to spend an entire day boiling away pig trotters every time you fancy a bowl.

I'm giving this book 3 stars because despite being a very cool idea, I'm just not going to use it much. This is really more for the ramen purists, as where I'll always be the girl who uses store-bought broth and noodles when she feel like having a lazy dinner.