This one was sent to me by Chef Ron of Mama Pat’s Foods – thanks again! This is the first Yum-Mie variety I’ve ever tried and hails from Ghana, a country in Africa. Really like the name ‘Yum-Mie!’Here’s a little about Ghana –
Ghanaian cuisine is the cuisine of the Ghanaian people. Ghanaian main dishes are organized around a starchy staple food, with which goes a sauce or soup containing a protein source. The main ingredient for the vast majority of soups and stews is tomatoes. Tinned or fresh tomatoes can be used. Nearly all Ghanaian soups and stews are red or orange in appearance as a result.
The typical staple foods in the southern part of Ghana include cassava and plantain. In the northern part, the main staple foods include millet and sorghum. Yam, maize and beans are used across Ghana as staple foods. Sweet potatoes and cocoyam are also important in the Ghanaian diet and cuisine. With the advent of globalization, crops such as rice and wheat have been increasingly incorporated into Ghanaian cuisine. The foods below represent Ghanaian dishes made out of these staple foods.
Most Ghanaian side dishes are served with a stew, soup or a spicy condiment made from raw red and green chilies, onions and tomatoes (pepper sauce). Ghanaian stews and soups are quite sophisticated, with liberal and delicate use of exotic ingredients, a wide variety of flavours, spices and textures.
Vegetables such as palm nuts, peanuts, cocoyam leaves, ayoyo, spinach, wild mushroom, okra, garden eggs (eggplant), tomatoes and various types of pulses are the main ingredients in Ghanaian soups and stews and in the case of pulses, may double as the main protein ingredient.
Beef, pork, goat, lamb, chicken, smoked turkey, tripe, dried snails, and fried fish are common sources of protein in Ghanaian soups and stews, sometimes mixing different types of meat and occasionally fish into one soup. Soups are served as a main course rather than a starter. It is also common to find smoked meat, fish and seafood in Ghanaian soups and stews.
Meat, mushrooms and seafood may be smoked, salted or dried for flavour enhancement and preservation. Salt fish is widely used to flavour fish based stews. Spices such as thyme, garlic, onions, ginger, peppers, curry, basil, nutmeg, sumbala, Tetrapleura tetraptera (prekese) and bay leaf are delicately used to achieve the exotic and spicy flavours that characterizes Ghanaian cuisine.
Palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter, palm kernel oil and peanut oil are important Ghanaian oils used for cooking or frying and may sometime not be substituted in certain Ghanaian dishes. For example, using palm oil in okro stew, eto, fante fante,[1] red red, egusi stew and mpihu/mpotompoto (similar to Poi).[2] Coconut oil, palm kernel oil and shea butter have lost their popularity for cooking in Ghana due to the introduction of refined oils and negative Ghanaian media adverts targeted at those oils. They are now mostly used in few traditional homes, for soap making and by commercial (street food) food vendors as a cheaper substitute to refined cooking oils.
Common Ghanaian soups are groundnut soup,[3] light (tomato) soup,[3] kontomire (taro leaves) soup, Palm Nut Soup,[4] ayoyo soup and okra soup.
Ghanaian tomato stew or gravy is a stew that is often served with rice or waakye. Other vegetable stews are made with kontomire, garden eggs, egusi (pumpkin seeds), spinach, okra, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a variety touting a ‘light soup.’ Let’s see what this Yum-Mie variety has to offer.
Yum-Mie Instant Noodles Beef In Light Soup Flavour – Ghana
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add noodle block to 250ml boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Flip over noodles and cook until water is mostly soaked up. Add in sachet contents, stir,m and enjoy. Alternately as a soup method (which seems like it would be the main method since it mentions the light soup on the front): add noodle block to 350ml boiling water and cook 3 minutes. Add in sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A dual sachet.
Chilli powder.
Soup base.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added beef and crushed red pepper flake. The noodles had more backbone than I’d expect. They are abundant and have a sturdier chew than many. The broth has a salty beef taste to it; not one that seems entirely artificial. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 6034000181227.
A great video of the factory where this and other instant product varieties are produced
