Pot Noodle

I saw this Pot Noodle in my local Tesco Metro and wondered “why is Pot Noodle so maligned? I think it is just mizzundastood!”

So I set myself the challenge of bringing Pot Noodle kicking and screaming into the 21st century by including it in a delicious but complex fine dining experience…

But what am I going to do? I think I’m going to make a chocolate mouse but serve it in an artisan caramel bowl with the caramel flavoured with dry Pot Noodle mix…

my logic here is the salt, beef flavour and MSG will really accentuate the chocolate in the mousse.

At this point you’re really confused and have no idea what I plan, so I have drawn a simple and easy to follow diagram that explains everything:

I start by making the caramel by melting sugar in a sauce pan to which I had about 2 tablespoons of dried Pot Noodle (WARNING: melted sugar is Napalm):

The next step is to pour the molten caramel onto some baking paper and as it cools I can work with it and fashion it into a bowl shape:

As you can see, this didn’t work insofar as I have made it into the shape of an alien foetus…

Not to be defeated I remelt the caramel but this time I pour over baking paper covering a bowl:

This time I have created the Devil’s Tower from Close Encounters. Oh yeah? You try it.

So I  melt another batch of sugar and revert to the first method and will present my fancy bowl at the end of this post (contain your excitement!).

Anyway, lets get onto the mousse. I begin by very gently warming through 3 egg yolks till they are just too hot to touch (this cures them and lends a richness to the mousse) I then add in 80g of 70% dark chocolate (this saves you having to faff around with a bain marie) and mix very quickly:

I then fold this into 500mls whipped double cream:

The final step is to transfer some of the mixture into my amazing fine dining caramel and Pot Noodle creation and chill in the fridge for an hour, after which I remove and as a final touch I add a drop of that piquant tomato sauce and a sprinkling of Pot Noodle powder:

So…how does it taste?

I think the dab of tomato sauce is a little too experimental even for me and the dusting of Pot Noodle powder is a little distracting flavour wise, but the mousse is gorgeous: it is light, chocolatey and works super well with the salty caramel. Super super good. I am really happy with this and I think with a bit of caramel shaping skills development, this could become a stunning desert.

So, what did you think of my experiments with Pot Noodle? And what have you tried cooking with Pot Noodle? Fire over to my Facebook page and tell me!

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