After my experiment with packet ramen I thought it best that I actually give making the real stuff a go. I made shoyu ramen and it was pretty excellent. It’s surprisingly hard to link ramen with anything going on politically right now (except of course debates around immigration but I’ve already done that with wantons and Tories) so instead I’m going to give you the top five reasons that I don’t like UKIP. Besides, based on the assumption that UKIP despises everything I love, I’m pretty sure UKIP hates ramen.
1) Many of their policies and stated ideas are ridiculous.
2) They are unaware of the ridiculous policies they are officially peddling.
4) They are hypocrites.
5) I feel duty bound to leave Britain in protest should they ever be elected. I don’t want to do this.
On to ramen.
Some people will fundamentally disagree with me, but I found this recipe pretty easy to make. You’ll notice that I haven’t included a recipe for stock- there are a lot out there and it’s up to you how you want to make it. Purists will argue for pork stock (although I believe in some regions of Japan shoyu ramen is also made with chicken stock) but really it’s up to you. I made mine with chicken because I had three chicken carcases left from a previous meal. I should note that I had made beer can chicken and probably got some extra flavour from that and that if you’re making stock specifically for ramen it’s not a bad idea to flavour it with ginger and garlic. I strongly believe that with ramen one of the main things is that the stock has to be pretty greasy and quite fatty so if you are going to make a chicken stock make sure that you include a lot of parts with a high cartilage content- feet, wings, legs- and that you cook it for a long time (mine was on the hob for 12+ hours). I would not recommend using anything but homemade stuff for this although of course it’s your life. And indeed your ramen.
Cutback-Charlie’s Shoyu Ramen (Serves 4)
Ingredients
2.5 litres chicken or pork stock
½ carrot sliced thinly
2 small heads bok choy, quartered.
1 clove garlic
1 poached chicken breast, sliced thinly
small piece ginger shopped finely
5 tbls soy sauce
2 tsp sake (shaoxing rice wine works too)
Dash of toasted sesame oil
1 tsp salt
300 grams dried ramen noodles
2 medium boiled eggs, halved.
Step 1: Gently fry ginger and 
garlic in sesame oil until it begins to turn golden. Add the stock, soy sauce, sake, salt and carrots. Simmer.
Step 2: Bring 400 ml water to a rolling boil, add ramen noodles and cook according to packet directions. Once done drain and add a dash of toasted sesame oil to keep noodles from sticking together.
Step 3: Place noodles in the bowls along with the halved eggs (one per bowl), and a few slices of chicken. Fill bowls with broth mixture. Place one half head bok choy per bowl.
Step 4: Marvel at your creation. Eat.
Cost: This was pretty cheap, especially because I had the leftover chicken carcases. When you’re skint though roasts are often few and far between so I recommend taking the Job Seeker John approach and freeze leftover boned in foil and save for a rainy day. The stock cost me £0.67 (for the veg, garlic and ginger) and the rest of the ingredients £5.64 which comes to a grand total of £6.31 or £1.58 per serving. You’ll be surprised how filling it is too.
Ciao!
austerilicious 
marvel at your creation indeed. xo