South Korean BTS singer Jungkook’s fusion ramen recipe: Why it has the internet in a tizzy

A bowl of steaming hot instant ramen noodles topped with a runny half-boiled egg and a generous helping of chopped spring onions might be your favourite way to eat ramen, but have you tried Jungkook’s viral ramen recipe yet?

Recently the BTS singer revealed a special ramen recipe on Weverse, a K-pop fan community app, and it instantly went viral.

On March 16, the singer whose full name is Jeon Jung-kook took to the social media platform to share a photo of his ramen dish with his fans, along with the recipe.

Jungkook mixed the Buldak Spicy Chicken noodle with Neoguri Ramyun and called it a "Bulguri" or "Bulgeuri".

In the caption, Jungkook shared instructions to mix both Neoguri and Buldak instant noodles and their condiments to create the perfect blend.

"Add 650 to 680 ml of water in a frying pan rather than a regular noodle pot. Turn on the heat and before the water boils, add one whole packet of liquid Buldak sauce and half of the Neoguri powder soup sauce. Add the dried vegetables. When the water starts boiling, add the noodles. Keep an eye on the noodles and cook until the water evaporates a bit.

“If it's too salty, add more water. And lastly, add the Buldak garnish at the end and some whole sesame seeds. If you have perilla oil (an edible vegetable oil), add that too," he wrote in the caption, in Korean.

Just as the post went viral, news reports revealed that Nongshim Co., Ltd. the South Korean food company, which owns Neoguri noodles, registered both names – ‘Bulguri’ and ‘Bulgeuri’ – as trademarks at the Korean Intellectual Property Office. This riled BTS fans.

South Korean entertainment news website allkpop.com reported that an official from Nongshim explained: "We applied for the purpose of protecting the trademark of Neoguri to prevent indiscriminate commercial use since it became a hot topic after BTS's Jungkook introduced it himself."

Fans argued that Jungkook should have trademark ownership since he was the first to introduce the recipe.

This is not the first time Nongshim went after a viral recipe. The company had previously filed for a copyright on the term ‘Jjapaguri’ after it got famous through the Oscar-winning movie Parasite.

Jjapaguri or Chapaguri, also known in English as ram-don, is a Korean noodle dish made by a combination of Chapagetti and Neoguri, two types of instant noodles produced by Nongshim. Later in 2020, they released Jjapaguri cup noodles.