Udon Noodle Bowls with Ramen Eggs

Well, today was a cold, rainy day, so naturally our dinner plans in the Piepan household gravitated towards soup.  Namely Japanese-style noodle soup. There is nothing that can warm you down to your bones like a perfect bowl of udon with fall vegetables. A word about noodle bowls and hotpots: I used more traditional Japanese ingredients because I have them around, and have easy access to them. The great thing about soups and hotpots is that the whole point is to use what you have laying around. Half a zucchini, a quarter of a potato that never got used, some random bits of onion, whatever. You can pretty much put anything in a bowl with some dashi and some noodles (or not!) and it will be delicious. Think of it as a great way to use your scraps.

*Makes two big bowls of soup*
**If you are making everything from scratch, allow 2 1/2 hours to make the noodles**

What you need for the soup:

6 cups dashi
appx 6 oz udon*
2 tsp miso if you like a miso soup

Whatever veggies you have laying around, but we used:

3 oz lotus root, peeled
1/2 cup burdock (also known as gobo) root, peeled and cut into 1/8 slices
1 cup (packed) cabbage
appx 10 shiitake mushrooms that were about to go bad**
2 green onions, white and green parts sliced thin, to garnish
shredded nori to garnish

For the ramen eggs:

6 c water
3 tsp baking soda
1/4 soy sauce (I used usukuchi, but any is fine, the flavor will vary)
2 Tbsp mirin (be sure to buy real mirin with alcohol, no high fructose corn syrup. You can also substitute cooking sherry, but at least once you should do yourself a favor and have real mirin. It's unlike any western equivalent)
2 Tbsp sake (you can sub water if you need to)
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 clove garlic, crushed by the flat of your knife



* There are plenty of alternatives to making 2 1/2 hour udon. The best udon is homemade, but frozen fresh is a good second. Here are some I got from our local Asian grocer:

Alternatively, here are some refrigerated, probably more processed commercial udon:

**Our fresh shiitake mushrooms were grown by a local company called Fungi Business:

We got their awesome mushrooms from our favorite local charcuterie, Local Pig. We will probably have more on that later, as there is a lot of awesome to cover with those folks.

Make your noodles, if they aren't pre-made.

Onto the ramen eggs (note: these are not perfectly traditional in udon noodle bowls, but they are so good that I want them in everything forever)

Put your water and baking soda together in a pan. Get that shit to a boil. If using baking soda sounds a little weird, let me tell you, it makes it sooooo much easier to peel off the shells. Because we are making a soft-boiled egg, the egg white is all that's separating the delicious, runny yolk from the cold, hard light of day, so minimizing egg white damage is important, hence our friend the baking soda. Once your water/baking soda mix is at a boil, add your eggs and immediately set a timer for six minutes (if you hate a soft yolk, you freak, boil for 9 minutes). Boil uncovered. In the meantime, get a regular soup bowl ready with a bunch of ice and cold water. Also, put together a bowl that will just hold two eggs, and put together the soy sauce, sake, mirin, garlic, and sesame oil.  When the six minutes are up, scoop out your eggs, and put them into the ice bath until they feel chilled, about 4-5 minutes. You may need to move them around a bit to make sure they get cooled all over.

 Once they're chilled, gently peel the shells off, and put them in the soy mixture.

Put some plastic wrap over the bowl, and set them in the fridge until you're ready to put together the soup. Turn the eggs every so often to get the brown color evenly, although I've honestly never had it totally even in color.

Let's assemble the veggies. Peel the burdock root and lotus root. Cut them both into 1/8 inch pieces.

Put the sliced burdock root in a small bowl of cold, lightly salted water for 10 minutes or so. This will draw out the bitterness so that all it imparts to the dish is a mild, earthy flavor that will balance out the saltiness of the broth.

Slice up the mushrooms, onion, and cabbage. Set 'em all together on a tray if you like. I put the green onions in a little bowl so I could add them just before serving and just scoop the rest of the ingredients into the soup.

Get the dashi boiling and add the roots, mushrooms, cabbage, and udon. If you are using miso, put a tsp in each bowl. While you're waiting for the udon and veg to cook, take about a 1/4 cup of broth from the soup and add it to each bowl. 

Use a whisk or a fork and blend the miso with the stock until fully incorporated.

If you want a little extra umami and you don't have any sodium restrictions, add a half tsp of the ramen egg soy mixture to each bowl

So, by now, your soup should be just about ready, and your noodles cooked. You will know they are cooked when they are firm all the way through, and when you cut one in half, the inside color is uniform.

Split up the noodles, veg, and whatnot into your two bowls. Once everything is split up, get out your ramen eggs and halve them on a cutting board. Keep in mind that the yolk is soft, so use a firm, decisive cut, and quickly roll the egg halves onto their curved side to preserve as much of the yolk as possible.

Place the eggs yolk-side up in the noodle bowls, garnish with green onion and, if you like, shredded nori (seaweed). Here's what we use:

Once you've added the garnish, you're all set! Itadakimasu!