Instructions

1. Break the ramen block into pieces small enough to lie flat before anything else goes in the bag. A whole block leaves a void the other ingredients rattle around in, and its corners work through a Mylar bag.
2. Check the beans rattle and are fully hard. A bean with any softness left in it carries enough moisture to spoil an oxygen-absorbed bag from the inside out.
3. Load the bag heaviest first: beans, then vegetables, then the crumbled bouillon cube and the noodles on top. A cube left whole at the bottom gets crushed into powder that lodges in the seam and stops the bag sealing.
4. Add the absorber and press the air flat out of the bag before closing the last of the seal. An absorber deals with oxygen rather than volume, and a puffed bag takes four times the room in a pack.
5. To cook, bring the two cups of water to the boil, tip everything in and take it straight off the heat with a lid on. These beans are already cooked and dried, so they need soaking rather than boiling, and boiling turns the noodles to paste.
6. Leave it covered for ten minutes, then taste a bean before you eat. If they are still firm add a splash more boiling water and wait again rather than putting the pot back on the flame.
7. Sealed with an absorber the bag holds a year somewhere cool and dark; without one, call it a month. The beans and the noodles are what fail first, and stale noodle oil is the smell to check for.