bits and pieces

As I currently have a bit of time on my hands, I’ve decided to do a bit more cooking and try out some new recipes. I picked up a few cookbooks about noodles and Japanese food, and have picked out a bunch of them to work my way through. We’ll see how many of those I get around to, but first up I went for an udon dish that seemed simple enough.

The recipe is Udon with Chicken and Spring Onions and it comes from the book Noodles in 60 Ways: Great Recipe Ideas With a Classic Ingredient. I wasn’t entirely sure about the book after noticing some poor editing and possibly translated content, but I went ahead anyway.

The ingredients were fairly easy to gather, though I had to stop by the local Chinese market to track down light and dark soy sauce (not be confused with low-sodium and regular soy sauce). Oh, and I had to settle for baby shiitake because Whole Foods didn’t have larger ones. But then it’s simple.

You basically boil dashi, then add the soy sauces, mirin, salt, and sugar. Next comes the pieces of chicken breast, then the veggies (cabbage, green onions) and mushrooms. Heat up some udon noodles, pour the broth and toppings over it, and you’re done.

As you can see in the photo, the end result didn’t quite look like the photo in the book. The broth was much darker than I thought it would be, which made the chicken end up looking like fried tofu (it’s chicken, really!). The flavor was all right, not too salty, not too sweet, just sort of in between. But it wasn’t really anything remarkable. Maybe even a little underwhelming. Ah well. :)

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try it out:

Udon with Chicken and Spring Onions
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 8 cups dashi
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 lb chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 6 spring onions, halved lengthways then cut into 2 inch pieces
• 6-8 shiitake mushrooms, wiped clean and stems discarded
• 1/4 head cabbage, cut into squares
• 1 lb udon

Preparation

1. In a large pot, bring dashi to the boil. Add salt, soy sauces, sugar, and mirin. Stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Bring broth back to the boil and add chicken. Simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken is tender. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
3. Add spring onions, mushrooms, and cabbage and simmer for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add udon, stir, and cook for 3 minutes or until udon is tender. Drain and rinse under cold running water then drain again.
5. Divide noodles equally among 4-6 serving bowls. Ladle hot dashi broth over udon and serve immediately.