French Onion Ramen

55 minutes. Serves 1.

This recipe is special. And not in the way that a mother says, “Oh, ALL my children are special!” You’re lying, Susan. You bought Rebecca a car for her 16th birthday, and you bought Kyle an SAT handbook. You clearly think Rebecca is more special, just how we think this recipe is more special. We developed it right when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, because we wanted people to be able to make comfort foods using whatever shelf-stable goods they had on hand. In fact, WE only had a few shelf-stable goods on hand! We were supposed to shoot our usual videos in the studio, when suddenly, after a week or so of speculation, the world shut down. We immediately ran to our producer’s house with fists full of grocery bags filled with a random assortment of items that we’d grabbed from the studio before we had to leave. We laid them all out on the table and tried to figure out what sort of simple deliciousness we could conjure up to actually improve people’s lives during what was sure to be a hell of an ordeal. French onion ramen, using only four(ish) ingredients, was an immaculate answer. Well, so were our cheesy rice muffins, but those kinda sucked. (Still filling and hearty, though!) We launched the “Mythical Kitchen” YouTube channel about two months before the pandemic hit, and our combination mantra and rallying cry of “EVERYBODY IS TRYING THEIR BEST!” has stuck ever since. Because we really are. And so are you.

2 large yellow or white

onions

2 tablespoons unsalted

butter

1 bag instant ramen,

chicken flavor

1⁄4 teaspoon salt, plus

more to taste

1 ounce liquor, such as

brandy, or white wine

1 cup shredded cheese, such as Gruyère or Swiss

Ground black pepper, to taste

1 Cut your onions in half, then thinly slice them. Yes, it is two whole onions for one pack of ramen, but it’s French onion ramen, and onions cook down, and they’re also good for you, so please just slice the onions.

2 Melt the butter in a large saucepan over mediumhigh heat. Add the ramen seasoning packet, onions and salt to create a real dang nice smell wafting

through your home. Cook the onions, just stirring occasionally, until they are cooked down, caramelized and maybe even slightly burned, about 30 minutes. Add a tablespoon of water from time to time, as needed, to help them cook more evenly.

3 Once those onions are cooked way down and filled with jammy goodness, pour in that shot of hooch to deglaze the bottom of the pan and use a silicone spatula or wooden spoon to scrape up all that browned stuff that would have been annoying as heck to clean up and instead turn it into the best flavor around.

4 Now you can add 1 quart of water and give it all another stir along the bottom of the pan to make sure there isn’t any more brown gold hiding in the corners. Bring it to a steady simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, then

taste it for salt and add more if you need to.

5 Add that gorgeous noodle brick, give the ramen a stir, then cover and let simmer until it’s soft, about 2 more minutes. Transfer your notso-instant noodles to a bowl and top with the grated cheese. If you are a badass you can use a kitchen torch to flame that cheese. You could also place it under the broiler (as long as your bowl can withstand the flame), or honestly, just microwave it until the cheese is melted.

6 Crack some pepper over the top and then eat it, and don’t think about whoever you weren’t thinking about anyway.

From “Rhett & Link Present the Mythical Cookbook: 10 Simple Rules for Cooking Deliciously, Eating Happily and Living Mythically” by Josh Scherer with Noah Galuten (Harvest).