Today I’m trying something really interesting. This is Paldo’s new spicy octopus ramyun! I thought I couldn’t make this stuff without adding some octopus, but I’d never cooked it before and was a little reserved and slightly nervous. Octopus? Hey, why not! I went to the Korean grocery and picked some up. It was a bit of a surprise how many different kinds of packaged octopus there are. I settled on frozen baby octopus. Let’s see how it turns out!
Here’s the back of the package (click image to enlarge). Not sure if it contains seafood or not. To prepare, add noodles and vegetables sachet to 500ml boiling water and cook for 3 and a half minutes. Drain. stir in the remaining sauce sachet, return to heat for 30 seconds. Enjoy!
The noodle block.
The vegetables sachet.
Looks to be mostly green onion.
The sauce sachet.
Wow – this stuff is thick. It kind of looks like barbecue sauce, but it sure doesn’t smell like it! It has a really spicy scent – and I mean spicy!
Here’s my cooked octopus! I did a bit of research and found that octopus is cooked in an interesting way. You take the whole thing and a pot of boiling water and dip it in for 3 seconds, take it out and repeat a few times. This ‘tempers’ the flesh – each dip causes the tentacles to curl a bit more, and I think the idea is that by giving is a little time for it to get used to the heat rather than just dropping it in, it will end up more tender. After the dipping, just drop it in, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Then, turn off the heat and let it sit in the water for another 20 minutes. It’s got a kind of rubbery consistency, more so than squid. Interesting stuff!
Tentacle!
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added green onion, sweet onion and baby octopus. The noodles have a very nice gauge and chew; it’s ramyun and so very hearty. The sauce is hot. Uber hot! This is definitely not for the faint of heart and really means it! The veggies were very good and complimented the dish. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8809296882183.
People are challenging eachother to eat a bowl of this stuff as fast as they can on Youtube – rad!
Did Paldo change their recipe?
I got a 5 pack of the bagged variety for the first time ever this past week, and the sauce sachet packet is a dark brownish red, not white and red. It really wasn’t that spicy, either; more sweet than spicy, imo. For me, on a scale of 1 to 10 on the spicy meter, this was a generous 2. Teumsae ramen beats the spice off this Paldo ramen any day.
I noticed the English ingredient list on your bulnak bowl review, and the ingredients aren’t the same as what”s listed on the back of my bagged pkgs. (The things I noticed right off the bat: no pork extract power extract and no beef flavoring—but there were other differences as well.)
J –
Hmmm I may have to retry this one – thanks for the heads up.
– TRR