Sup internet. My brain is woozy from the yellow smokey air we've been getting in the NYC area from the Canadian wildfires. At least I have good food to keep me company.
I've been making myself some udon soup recently. It's a nourishing, comforting meal that really helps if you're not feeling well. It's relatively simple to make and quite flexible with ingredients. This recipe is, once again, from Choki. (I think my blog has basically turned into a Choki recipe review site.)
Ingredients
-4 cups clean drinking water
-1 tbsp dashi granules (I use the Hondashi brand)
-A few slices of fried tofu/bean curd - I prefer the one that comes in a block
-Your favorite veggies - I used
Several slices of carrot
1 bok choy, leaves separated
Enochi mushrooms
-2 tbsp dark miso paste (I use red miso)
-1/2 lb cooked Japanese udon noodles
-Kamaboko (Japanese fish cake)
-Garnish optional (I recommend sliced green onion)
Recipe
I don't live in an area with clean drinking water so I start off by filtering 4 cups of tap water. While that's going, I cut up carrot and fried tofu, and cleaned and separated the bok choy and enochi mushrooms.
Place the water in a pot with dashi granules, tofu, and your veggies (I dropped in my bok choy and mushrooms a little later because they cook pretty quickly).
Cover and let boil, then lower the heat to low. Let simmer for 10 minutes. You can use this time to prep your miso and cut up some thin slices of kamaboko.
Then stir in your miso paste. I use a strainer that grazes the top of the soup and move the miso around with chopsticks so they dissolve in the water.
Add udon noodles to the soup, stir, and cover. Temporarily up the heat if your soup stopped simmering so it can get its groove back.
Now you can add the kamaboko and crack an egg. I haven't mastered getting the perfect poached egg in this soup, mine always seems to sink a little which kind of prevents the egg from being a smooth aesthetic poached egg. Here you can see I tried to be pretty, with the kamaboko somewhat symmetrical and the egg in the center.
Cover and let simmer for ~3 minutes so the egg can cook and the kamaboko can heat up. Then serve and optionally add garnish. I used cilantro for this run but actually think green onion works better flavor-wise.
Result
Here is a bowl of my soup, garnished up, with egg torn up. The broth is simlar to that of my miso soup rendition, because it's almost the same ingredient-wise. The noodles are soft and wonderful, the vegetables are comforting, and the egg, tofu, and fish cake provide some protein and interesting textures.
This soup is good but it's only going to get better as it sits in the fridge for a day or two. Why are soups always like that?
I have a feeling I might write a blog post tomorrow. Have a good night,
~Avi
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