Mui Fridays: 01
Welcome to the very first Mui Fridays, where each week I’m giving you all the tools to create a banger Friday night at home. How do I know it will be good? Well, I did it the week before. And it’s a Friday, so it’s kinda hard to get wrong.
I’ll give you….(well tell you what to get, I’m a freelance illustrator - I can’t afford to feed you all)
The music.
The drinks.
The food.
The entertainment.
Now turn off those overhead lights, flick on the lamps, light your candles and get the disco ball spinning - here’s the ingredients to your first Mui Fridays.
The Music
It’s not often that Michael comes around to my emo / alt playlists but he was in a good mood and went along with it. A mix of some old and new stuff. You don’t need to focus too much with the cooking, so it was nice to have some heavier music keeping us energised.
Pre Dinner Drinks
As we do every Friday, we had our shot. Jameson. Feel free to skip this but if you’d like to participate, grab your drink of choice and put on Rihanna’s Cheers (Drink to That). Soju is a great option for something not too strong and delicious - this is my pick.
While we prepped dinner, Michael made us a couple of Negronis to get started (I forgot to take a photo of these). Equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari (or similiar) - recipe here. I love subbing the Campari for Poor Toms Imbroglio Amaro.
The Food
Ramen!
This recipe for ‘Easy Tantanmen Ramen’ was from Marion’s Kitchen and was delicious.
A couple of my adjustments and tips:
We used the full 500g packet of pork mince because who’s mad about having extra pork topping? Not us. We used the same measurements for everything else though.
Don’t be intimidated by the doubanjiang chilli bean paste - we just got a chilli bean paste (we got the brand Bull Head) from the asian grocery store and let me tell you… it’s the secret ingredient that gives it that authentic taste. Do not skip it. We actually added a teaspoon into the broth base as well.
I’ve had a lot of bad luck with ramen noodles, and have found Mr Chen’s Thick Egg Noodles to hold up the best. They also come bundled in serving sizes so you just cook a bundle per person. EASY!
Didn’t have sake so used mirin.
I like my eggs jammy. Use this Bon Appetit recipe to master the jammy egg.
I added a sheet of nori, some crispy fried shallots and crispy chilli oil.
This recipe serves 4 so I only heated up half the broth and saved half of the paste - had the rest for lunch the next day.
This recipe has a few moving parts, but they are all easy. Boiling an egg - you can do that! Frying up some mince with some sauce - you got this. Watching noodles boil - does it get any easier? The hardest thing is probably peeling the shell off the egg and I mean, you could just leave the eggs out all together if that’s what is stopping you.
Slurping a hot bowl of ramen on a cold Winter’s night, at home… heaven.
PS. Highly recommend washing as you go / washing everything up before you sit down to eat. That way you just have your bowls to wash up later and can enjoy the rest of your night in peace.
Dinner Drinks
We tossed up between having an Asahi beer or Japanese whisky but ended up going for the whisky. Our decision was based on the fact that ramen is already like a drink so we only needed something to sip and slowly enjoy between slurps.
Michael got this beautiful bottle of Nikka, Yoichi Single Malt Japanese Whisky as a gift and it was delicious. It is on the pricey side, so perhaps a single can of Asahi split between two would serve just as well.
Always enjoy responsibly and in moderation :)
The Entertainment
We are a little late to the party but we watched ‘Stranger Things’. If you haven’t already, I recommend giving it a go. We are addicted (and finally up to season 4)
I took this photo because the score was 69.
If you’ve already powered through Stranger Things, I’d recommend watching ‘From’. It’s available on Stan, from the creators of Lost and has big freaky energy.
Throw that all together and I reckon you’ll have a pretty good Friday night.
If you follow along any of my Mui Fridays, take a pic and tag me on instagram @marniemui_illustrations - I’d love to see what you get up to!
Come back next week for the second instalment of Mui Fridays.
Cheers, MM