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We try a viral Chinese TikTok recipe for spicy ramen using Sprite soda in the broth【SoraKitchen】

Dale Roll Aug 26, 2021
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What could “Sprite Noodles” taste like?

TikTok is the social media platform of the hour, and for good reason. With bite-size videos full of funny and engaging content, what’s not to like? We especially love the creative food ideas people come up with, like the McDonald’s apple pie hack and the recipe for making pillowy cloud bread, because they let people share ways to make already tasty food even more delicious!

The latest food hack to go viral on TikTok in China is a noodle recipe using a popular, spicy Korean-style instant ramen known as Shin Ramen. It caught the eye of our Japanese language reporter P.K. Sanjun, who, as you know, considers himself a foodie. They call it 雪碧拌面, but for P.K., who doesn’t speak Chinese, it was hard to judge what kind of dish it was based on the meaning of the characters alone–a combination of “snow”, “blue”, and “lo mein”–, so he did a quick Google search to get an idea of what to expect.

Unfortunately, all the results came back in Chinese, so that didn’t really help. P.K. had eaten dishes with Chinese egg noodles before, so he had an idea of what to expect from the “lo mein” part of the name, perhaps. But where do the “snow” and “blue” come in? P.K. asked fellow reporter Takashi Harada, who knows a little bit of Chinese, and it turns out that 雪碧 is simply the Chinese name for Sprite.

So 雪碧拌面 is just “Sprite Noodles”, nothing fancy about the name. But does that mean it’s a noodle dish made with…Sprite? And…and spicy ramen??

Learning this, P.K. just had to try making it, because what could that possibly taste like?

Here’s the recipe for Sprite Noodles:

Ingredients:

● 1 package of Shin Ramen
● 1 clove of garlic
● 1 chili pepper
● 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
● Green onion, to taste
● Cilantro, to taste
● 1/2 cucumber
● 2 slices of lemon
● Zhenjiang vinegar, to taste
● Soy sauce, to taste
● Cooking oil, to taste
● 200 milliliters (6.8 ounces) of Sprite

Directions

1. Slice the cucumber into strips, then finely chop the onions, cilantro, garlic, and chili pepper.

2. Add the garlic, chili pepper, sesame seeds, and half the powder soup into a bowl.

3. Warm up some oil in a pan, then pour it over the spices in the bowl.

4. Add the Sprite.

5. Add your desired amount of Zhenjiang vinegar and soy sauce and mix well.

6. Boil the noodles, then cool in ice water.

7. Add the noodles to the bowl, then top with cucumbers, onions, cilantro, and lemon slices.

And that’s it! Though P.K. found that warming up oil in a pan before adding it to the spices was an interesting technique, he was, of course, most curious about what the Sprite would add to the flavor. Wouldn’t it be too sweet? Wouldn’t the carbonation be weird? Slightly nervous, P.K. scooped up some noodles and hesitantly slurped them up…

It was actually really good!

It wasn’t sweet at all, and there was somehow no carbonation at all, either. It just tasted like a normal broth, albeit a really tasty one. It actually still had a pretty spicy aftertaste, too. P.K. would never have guessed that it had Sprite in it at all if he hadn’t put it in himself.

In fact, P.K. thought that this cold noodle dish was pretty close to cold noodles he’d eaten in Shangai. Though he’d used Korean-style instant ramen to make it, the Zhenjiang vinegar really gave the dish a Chinese flair that was really quite tasty. P.K. had to admit it lacked a certain depth of flavor and umami, but for a TikTok hack, it was actually pretty good.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by P.K.サンジュン (@p.k.sanjun)

Cold noodles dishes are some of the best things to eat to stay cool in summer–just ask our other reporter Go Hatori, who’s devised an expert way to beat the heat with cold noodles. So why not give “Sprite Noodles” a try yourself while it’s still hot outside? The mixture of spicy flavors and cold temperatures is sure to make you forget the heat!

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