There is only one Asian supermarket near me (I miss you 99 Ranch Market!), so I go there for all of my specialty Asian food shopping. It’s been a little rainy and dreary lately (the last bit before it gets suuuper hot out), so some sort of soup sounded like a good idea before we swear off hot soup for a few months.
Udon Noodle Soup
I prepped all of the vegetables first, which took a bit of time because there were quite a few vegetables. I used dried mushrooms, so the first thing I did was re-hydrate them by immersing them in water until they were soft enough to cut (after removing the stems). I then minced the garlic and the ginger, separated the the baby bok choy leaves from each other, and chopped the scallions. I cheated a bit and used bamboo shoots that were already sliced.
Now, about that pork belly! It is one of my favorite ingredients in Japanese noodle soups, including ramen. I found some at Trader Joe’s and bought it without a second thought without any real plans for it…until now!
While the vegetables were cooking, I sliced the pork belly in half and saved the other half for another time. I placed it skin down in a hot skillet and let the fat render out until the skin was brown and crispy. I removed it from the pan to cut into 1/4″-1/2″ inch thick slices, then put them back in the hot pan and browned the slices on all the other sides a little bit. Be careful with all this though – the rendered out fat starts to splatter!
Back to the vegetables now. After the mushrooms and bamboo shoots had cooked for a few minutes, I poured in the ponzu sauce (gives it a citrus-y flavor), soy sauce, and water. I threw in the baby bok choy, covered the pan, and let it simmer a bit for the baby bok choy to get a little softer. Then I added the udon noodles and recovered until the noodles had all unstuck from each other and had gotten soft.
Then it was time to assemble everything: the combined soup mixture went into the bowls first, then the pork belly and half an egg each. I garnished each bowl with the remaining scallions, quartered a big sheet of dried seaweed (just folded it and tore it with my hands) and put two quarters in each bowl.
Voilà!
Recipe
Udon Noodle Soup
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. ginger, minced
- 2 scallions, chopped
- 3 oz. shiitake mushrooms
- 3 oz. bamboo shoots
- Optional: other vegetables (e.g., roasted corn, baby corn, other types of mushrooms, etc.) can be used instead of or in addition to vegetables listed above)
- 6 oz. pork belly (I use fully-cooked from Trader Joe’s)
- 8 oz. Udon noodles
- 5 oz. baby bok choy (~1.5 bunches)
- 0.25 cup ponzu sauce
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 cups water
- 1 egg, soft- or medium-boiled
- 1 sheet seaweed, quartered or two sheets small seaweed sheets
Method
- Boil egg until soft- to medium-boiled (depending on preference)
- Sauté garlic, ginger, and 0.75 portion (the white parts and most of the green parts) of the chopped scallions in olive oil until fragrant
- Add mushrooms and bamboo shoots and sauté
- Meanwhile, place pork belly skin side down and heat until it turns brown and fat renders out
- Add ponzu sauce, soy sauce, and water to vegetables and simmer for a few minutes
- Add baby bok choy and simmer for a few minutes
- Add udon noodles and simmer until noodles separate and become soft (only takes a few minutes)
- While soup is simmering, cut pork belly into 1/4″-1/2″ inch slices and return to pan to brown on all sides
- Split noodle soup into 2 bowls and top with pork belly, remaining scallions, half an egg each, and two quarter sheets of dried seaweed
- Nom nom nom!
Estimated nutritional information (per serving): 565 calories; 29.1g fat; 137.5mg cholesterol; 2,204mg sodium; 168.8mg potassium; 52.3g carbs; 25g protein
