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.

DASHI!!!

I really, really love Japanese food. It's my favorite, and a lot of the philosophy behind washoku (Japanese home cooking) has influenced my cooking and eating style greatly. I'm big on simplicity of ingredients, seasonal cooking, using meat sparingly, and umami over sweet, all of which can be largely attributed to my deep love for washoku. Dashi is one of the cornerstones of Japanese cooking, and with it's simplicity and versatility, you can definitely see why. You can use dashi anywhere you would use stock, and it's a great, healthy alternative to chicken or beef broth. There are many different kinds of traditional dashi, made from dried shiitake mushrooms, seaweed, etc, but this recipe is the most basic. All you need is kombu (a dried kelp) and bonito (or katsuobushi), which is flakes of dried, smoked skipjack tuna. Any Asian market will have these ingredients, and you should buy a big bag, because once you make dashi, you're gonna end up using it in everything. Also, from a cat lady standpoint, dried bonito flakes make a great cat treat.