Udon Noodle Soup

Weather seems to have a sizeable effect on my cooking choices.

There was a big thunderstorm. This cooled everything right off and made the idea of soup very comforting, not to mention feasible heat-wise.

I loove udon noodle soup. I tend to get it in crummy Asian fast food places, when I have to eat there. (Not all Asian fast food places are really bad. Airport ones are, generally, but otherwise, you've a fair chance of getting good food.) In any case, it's pretty hard to botch, in general. Good sign for tentative ethnic foodie.

J soups have a basic and very all-purpose stock: dashi, made from water, dried giant kelp, and shaved dried fish (bonito flakes). When I say all-purpose, I mean it: this is in miso, won ton, anything. You can, of course, buy it powdered: hon-dashi--but no properly obsessed foodie would do that. My cookbook, this time, didn't lie about the stock being easy to make. It took under ten minutes. Nor do you need a really exceptional ethnic grocery store to get these thing. If it's Japanese, it will absolutely positively have bonito flakes, sometimes called katsuobushi, and kombu. Fear not.

(I got mine at a certain Miyamoto. Small but well-stocked Asian grocery store; it may be the only one in the Westmount area).

So that part succeeded. I was working from a recipe here from a site called Soup Song; I'm kind of in love with it. Have added to link list. The udon noodles are to be cooked by boiling water, adding noodles, then adding cold water to the pot and returning to the rolling boil. It was pretty easy. The most complicated thing was the mushrooms. Using dried Shiitake, you soak in boiling water for an hour. Then you add sugar and soy sauce to the "mushroom tea" formed, and cook it down, the mushrooms absorbing some liquid. Seeing as there were the noodles to cook, the salmon to grill (I was doing grilled salmon as a side), the broth to heat, and the mushrooms to caramelize, and I only had two burners, the result was some sad, confused burner-hopping. On the bright side, the mushroom stuff was dee-lish: the liquid gave a gorgeous flavour to the dashi and the mushrooms were good. Next time, I'll use more.

One thing about the udon was they were very starchy, turning the water white. Asian noodles are rinsed and rubbed together after cooking to remove that starch. I don't think I did this hard enough. They were a little odd, slimy maybe, and colored the dashi. Don't overlook this step.

The salmon was being served separately, although I ended up eating it in the soup: yum. So the only other component was some chives, en défaut de spring onions. Eat up! I was satisfied with this for a first try, but it had flaws, so...

Next time:
1. Mirin! I didn't season the broth with it enough. Bad. Not enough character.
2. More work on the noodle front.
3. More mushrooms; more of that whole affair.
4. More broth; my proportions were kind of messed up, and there were too many noodles.
5. No chives. They were just weird.
6. More... stuff. It was a little too simple for a one-pot meal. On the list: fried egg, à la bibimbop, nori (awesome in soups. Period), and integrate the salmon.