Pad Thai Ramen Noodles

Yesterday, when I got home from school, I was freakishly hungry.  I let my boyfriend claim the leftover ribs from dinner the night before (I didn't really want them anyways), but I still wanted something fast.  I had remembered seeing a recipe from Martha Stewart for a Ramen noodle upgrade and thought it would be perfect.  After all, it uses the college student staple and so far every odd Ramen concoction I have tried so far has ranged from okay to pretty tasty.

It even looks pretty good, which is more than I can say for a great deal of my other concoctions.

I even happened to have all the ingredients just laying around.  It was destined to happen.

My Sriracha situation is still pretty dire from my Sriracha wings, but I promise there was still more than enough for this recipe.  The recipe also did not mention what flavor Ramen works best, so I used the only flavor I had left.

I cooked the noodles with the flavor pack, drained off most of the liquid, and mixed the ingredients.  Once again I added about double the Sriracha because I love spicy food.  

At this point I had a little voice yelling in my head that two tablespoons was way too much peanut butter, but almost all the reviews for it said it tastes great, so I told that voice to shut the hell up.  

It didn't look like the picture, but it also didn't look too bad.

Looks can be deceiving.

This is one of the single worst things I have eaten.  Ever.  It tastes how you would imagine mixing Ramen and peanut butter would.  "Slimy peanut butter noodles" is a better name for this one.  I am highly against wasting food, but I honestly couldn't stomach more than three bites.  My stomach also made weird noises for a few hours after I ate it.  I ended up microwaving chicken nuggets and dipping them in leftover spinach dip.  I should have listened to that voice in my head.  I don't give my culinary training enough credit apparently.

Sriracha Wing Sauce

So, I am a big fan of Sriracha.  The kind of crazy fan that puts it in everything from vegetables, to soups, to eating it on cheese and crackers.  If it was a person I would have it locked in my basement by now so it could never leave me.  Er ... Anyways, I recently got my boyfriend of seven years to try it by trying a bite of my Sriracha sub (it took long enough, I know).  Thankfully he fell in love with it.  I can finally introduce him to the wonderful world of the tasty fire that is Sriracha.

What would be the logical place to start?  Well, with Super Bowl Sunday coming up, what better place than with Sriracha wings?  I thought about a few ways to make one on my own, but since I wanted this to actually be a good introduction I wanted it to taste good and not some semi-edible abomination, so I decided to start with someone else's successful recipe. 

The recipe I chose to use as my base was Food Networks honey sriracha wing sauce.

The recipe calls for two pounds of wings, but I used three and still had so much extra sauce.  I pulled out my wings that had been defrosting in the fridge over night and dried each one off with a paper towel.

Then, I remembered to preheat the oven and scrambled to do that and grease my sheet pan before I forgot completely.  Despite my culinary training, I always forget this step and end up with something ready to go in the oven just to have to wait for it to heat up, or I put it in anyways and pray it still comes out right.  I am a college student, cut me a little slack.

I assembled the ingredients for the garlic butter that goes on the wings before they cook.

 Okay, okay.  For the nit pickers out there, I know that is salted butter.  I usually use unsalted, but I accidently got the wrong kind last time I was trying to speed shop.  I do not waste.  Also, I am not sure that was the right type of garlic, but it is better than nothing (what the hell is granulated garlic anyways).

I melted the butter and mixed it all up.  I added twice the garlic because for some reason this jar has been much weaker in flavor than what I am used to.

This is what it looked like.  That black speck is pepper I swear.  

Anyways, I am pretty sure my wings were still a little too cold.  When I poured this over them the butter solidified and I ended up having to spread a butter paste on the wings with my hands after I put them on the pan.  Nothing makes you feel sexier than having hands coated with butter and chicken purge.

I hoped for "this will be good enough" and threw them into the oven.  On to the sauce!

Okay, so I haven't actually bought soy sauce since I was in high school and I was not about to buy a container when thrifty little me keeps all of her takeout sauces.  Fun fact: did you know one of these packets is almost a full tablespoon? Which makes one good enough in my book for the recipe.

On the other hand, 1/3 cup of honey was almost all of what was left in my little bear, which means no more tea for me until I go back to the store.  I also doubled the Sriracha in the recipe (I really love this stuff and it did not seem like enough).  I also guessed on the lime.  Half a lime squeezed in seemed good enough to me.

Next time I make it, I am going to omit the butter.  I know it is hard to tell from this picture, but that is not a homogenous mixture.  The butter just sat on top and never really mixed in.  

Despite my problems with the garlic butter, the wings still looked pretty good when they came out of the oven.

The result?  They were pretty good.  No, that is a blatant lie.  They were some of the best wings I have ever had.  I suggest everyone make these.  Now.  The next time I make it though, I am going to add a little red pepper, since they were still a little mild for my taste.

Here is my adapted recipe for these amazing wings.

Ingredients:

Wings:

3 lbs Wings

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons jarred garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Sauce:

5 tablespoons butter (although I would omit this)

1/3 cup honey

1/2 cup Sriracha

1 tablespoon soy sauce

juice from half a lime

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

2. Grease a half sheet pan

3. Dry wings off with paper towel

4. In a coffee cup or small bowl melt butter

5. Add vegetable oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.  Mix well

6. Coat wings and place in a single layer on pan

7. Bake the wings until they are done. 40-60 minutes.

8. In a small pot melt butter over the stove on low heat (for the love of everything, skip this step)

9. Add honey, Sriracha, soy sauce, and lime juice

10. Cook until the sauce starts to simmer

11. Remove wings from sheet pan an coat in sauce

12. Enjoy the shit out of them.