It may be due to the weather, but I've been craving udon lately. However, not since my visit to Japan a couple of years ago have I had a worthy udon soup. There it was duck and green onion udon with the typical dashi (broth), and I had it several times. With my selection of ingredients, I wouldn't even try to recreate it. But, I did try a vegan udon soup today that turned out brilliantly.
Sultan centre has some of the ingredients that are key to making this dish work, including the noodles and miso paste. I got dried shitake mushrooms, sold as dried black chinese mushrooms, in a shop in the city.
First the broth. I covered the dried mushrooms with boiling water. I wanted to extract as much of the flavour as possible. It resulted in a beautifully golden broth that had such a nice aroma. Strained through a fine sieve and kept it on the side. In one pan, i boiled the noodles for 6 or 7 minutes until they were still a little al dente. In another, i sauteed some garlic and ginger in some sesame oil. Then added the vegetables (eggplant, fresh mushrooms, the rehydrated mushrooms, sweet red pepper, then the broth, about a tablespoon of miso paste, soy sauce and let it cook until the vegetables were almost done. Then I added some tofu and cooked for a couple of minutes more. To serve, I put some noodles in a bowl, poured over some broth and vegetables, then what you see above is what I got.
It was really enjoyable and a soup I'm sure I'll make again and again. If I could find some kombu (kelp) to give some extra aroma to the stock, I think that would perfect this dish.
