Japanese Noodle Soup: Serves 6 This soup is the ultimate comfort food. If any of the ingredients are not on your “favorite food list”, you can omit them. Once you have all the ingredients, this soup comes together easily and you only need a salad to have a wonderful meal. It also has many healthy ingredients and can be entirely vegetarian if you use vegetable broth and omit the dashi.
The dashi is in the center and the shichimi togarashi is to the right. * Note about ingredients: Dashi, wakame, napa cabbage, shichimi togarashi and edaname can all be purchased at Wegmans and other grocery stores with good Asian sections. I have posted a picture of all these ingredients so you know what you’re looking for. The edaname are often found in the frozen section in their pods. But at the Asian grocers you can find them frozen and already out of the pods which is much more convenient. The noodles are found fresh in the refrigerator section of the Asian grocery store but you can use any noodle that you’d like including dry noodles such as soba or even spaghetti. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE INGREDIENTS CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE LEFT SIDE OF THIS PAGE: "FOOD THESAURUS"
[recipe difficiulty=”easy”]
Japanese Noodle Soup: Serves 6
Ingredients:
8 cups( 2- 32 ounce cartons) chicken or vegetable broth
3 tsp. instant dashi *
1 heaping Tbs. dried wakame (seaweed)*
5 dried shitake mushrooms
1 14 ounce block extra firm tofu, cut into one inch by one inch strips
1 small head napa cabbage, cut into slices*
5 scallions, chopped
1 16 oz. bag Pan fried noodle Hong Kong style or any dried noodle*
1 cup shelled edaname (soy beans)
1 Tbs. fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
2 Tbs. miso
Shichimi Togarashi (red pepper and sesame seed spice blend)*
Cooking Instructions
1. Heat the broth to boiling in a large pot and add the dashi.
2. Meanwhile, soak the mushrooms for 15 minutes in a bowl of ½ cup hot water placing a smaller bowl on top of the mushrooms, to make sure they are immersed.
3. Soak the wakame also in a bowl of 1 cup hot water for 15 minutes. It will expand to about 1 cup.
4. When the broth has come to a boil add the ginger, tofu,edamame and cabbage and simmer for 10-15 minutes until cabbage is just cooked.
5. Once the mushrooms have soaked, slice them and add them to the broth along with the soaking liquid which has been strained of particles. Also, add the reconstituted wakame which has been rinsed and coarsely chopped. Discard soaking liquid.
6. Meanwhile, as the soup is cooking, either cook the noodles according to directions or, if you are using the pan fried noodles, fry them in a little oil and add ½ cup water and cover to allow them to steam for 5 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue frying until lightly brown and crispy, stirring frequently. I do this in two batches.
7. Mix the miso with a little hot broth until free of lumps and add to soup for the last 2 minutes of cooking. Miso should not be boiled.
8. To serve: Ladle soup in a large bowls, sprinkle each serving with scallion and serve the noodles, and shichimi togarashi separately for people to serve themselves.
Feel free to use your culinary expression to add or omit any ingredients. This is a very free form dish which you can tailor make to your taste.
* Note about ingredients: Dashi, wakame, napa cabbage, shichimi togarashi and edaname can all be purchased at Wegmans and other grocery stores with good Asian sections. I have posted a picture of all these ingredients so you know what you’re looking for. The edaname are often found in the frozen section in their pods. But at the Asian grocers you can find them frozen and already out of the pods which is much more convenient. The noodles are found fresh in the refrigerator section of the Asian grocery store but you can use any noodle that you’d like including dry noodles such as soba or even spaghetti. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE INGREDIENTS CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE LEFT SIDE OF THIS PAGE: "FOOD THESAURUS"
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Celia,
Great recipe! I just pepared the soup last night and it was delicious. I used soba noodles instead of the fried noodles and some white fish that I pre-cooked in the pan before adding to the soup. The soup was perfect for this time of the year when everyone seems to be getting this nasty cold with a lingering cough as the ginger addresses the lungs to break up phlegm and the cabbage aids the fluids of the body damaged by the cough. Perhaps I will run into you at Stick & Stone this year….
Dana
Dana,
This is really one of my favorite comfort foods. Everyone loves it and you can play around with the ingredients, as you did. Any noodle works but actually cooking it separately and adding the noodles to each person’s bowl as you serve works better since otherwise the noodles keep soaking in the broth. I sometimes add shrimp and the fish was a good idea. Between the ginger, the miso, the shitake, seaweed and hot broth it really is a very healty meal. I’d like to have a link from the Full Plate CSA newsletter so I can share some of my recipes with other members. Hope to see you there. Celia
I love Japanese Noodle Soup!
I will need to give this a go. I have never tried Japanese food despite visiting Tokyo a number of years ago. However this is because I am vegetarian and I couldn’t find anything that was Japanese and didn’t have meat or fish in it.
Hi April,
To make this soup vegetarian you need to leave out the dashi which is made with fish. But it will be great without it. Let me know what you think. Celia
This soup sounds great! I love to try new founds and give feed back on them. I will have to try this one.
Erin, Play around with it. Let me know how it turns out! Celia
I spent a year as an exchange student in Kyoto Japan, and I have to say I probably wouldnt have survived if it werent for a delicious bowl of udon a couple of times a week! There is even one shop where you can eat for free if you do 30 minutes of washing the dishes after, but I cant say I was ever that poor! Anyway, I found a load more tasty looking ideas at this udon recipe site.