Tag Archives: soup

Japanese Soups

Soba Noodles

6 July 2009 – 8:33 am

This flu season has got to be the worst one ever – I have been sick three times already and counting… and we’ve only managed to scrape through the first month of winter! I can’t be sick in the next two months because of so many planned activities, and it will just kill me if I don’t get to attend all of them (yes, all of them).

To combat the flu, the sore throat, the runny nose, the fever, and the poor immune system, I decided to stay home Friday last week and hide away from the cold, harsh winter weather. The sister was home sick too (I got it from her dammit!) so I thought I’d make us feel better by making a warm, light, healthy soup for lunch.

Mixed seafood soba noodles

Mixed seafood soba noodles

This is my take on Nigella Lawson’s “Soup for the Needy People”. The basic ingredients are the same, but with my own little tweaks with whatever ingredients I could find in my pantry. And being sick and housebound for days, it was a very dwindling number of pantry ingredients.

Mixed Seafood Soba Noodles

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Soup for the Needy People

Makes approximately 2 servings

500ml beef stock

200g dried soba noodles

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp mirin

1 bunch baby bok choy

1 stem scallions, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

Tofu, bean sprouts, carrots, mushrooms, and other vegetables

A selection of mixed seafood

1. Boil the stock in a saucepan. Add soy sauce and mirin.

2. Add seafood, onions, tofu, and vegetables (eg carrots, mushrooms,  etc).

3. Add soba noodles. Cook for a minute.

4. Add remaining ingredients – bean sprouts, bok choy, scallion and other greens. Cook for a few seconds and turn off heat. Put on lid and let the steam “cook” the vegetables. Enjoy!

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Japanese Poultry

Chicken Udon Noodle Soup

20 June 2009 – 11:08 pm

Winter has definitely settled in Sydney. Days are shorter, and nights are definitely colder. One Thursday night, after coming home late from work and gym, my sister decided to treat us to some warm, chicken udon noodle soup.

It was the perfect light soup – full of vegetables, flavour, and that extra feeling of being in Japan. The smell of soy sauce, mirin, and shiitake mushrooms instantly took me back to our time in Japan when it was cold, damp, and the only agenda for that night was to scour the streets of Osaka to look for the best izakaya.

Chicken Udon Noodle Soup

Makes 4 servings

Udon noodles for 4
9 Shiitake Mushrooms, washed
Bunch of Bok Choy
8 Kamaboko, or Fish Cake
4 Fried Tofu, sliced vertically
Sliced Chicken Breast. I used a whole chicken breast.
Lemon for later

Flavouring:
Mushroom:
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce

Soup:
1 tbsp Granulated Dashi, or 1 Chicken/Vegetable Broth Cubes
2 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
2 1/2 tbsp mirin
1/2 cup mushroom stock (125ml)
4 1/2 cups water (875ml)

  1. Slice X’s on top of the mushrooms.
  2. Put it in a pot and pour water over it, just enough to submerge it. Cook on low heat for 20 mins, then add the
    sugar and stir. Cover for about 8 mins.
  3. Add the soy sauce and cover again until the mushroom’s cooked.
  4. Add noodles in a pot of water and boil until the noodles separate. Drain the noodles well.
  5. Chop the ends off the bok choy and rinse. Boil these until they’re cooked, roughly 2 mins.
  6. Boil the chicken until it’s thoroughly cooked. Drain and set aside.
  7. For the soup flavouring, take your broth cube and melt in a little hot water. Once it’s
    completely melted, add about 1 cup of hot water and mix well.
  8. In a large pot mix the water, mirin, soy sauce, mushroom stock and broth together in
    medium heat.
  9. Once it starts to heat up add the noodles. Leave it there for a couple of minutes, then start adding the
    chicken, mushroom, and fish cake. Cover and let it simmer for about 2 mins, then turn off. Squeeze the lemon
    over your bowl of soup when serving.

Roughly based on Cooking With Dog’s “Nabeyaki Udon” recipe.

PS. Heee! My sister also made a video and created a SugarlaceTV on youtube! Go check it out!

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