Let's start with Udon!

Greetings, nerdy Friends of Leif.

It dawned on me last night that instead of adding more sprawl to Amphibian Army, i would partition a blog to my newest idea: exploring regional cooking, one year at a time. The obvious place for me to start is with Japanese food. Now, it's Winter in the Midwest, and a good place to start this blog is with Udon.

* A disclaimer for anyone who doesn't know me: I have never taught English in Japan. I speak a bare minimum of the language- just enough to confuse people. I don't have any Japanese relatives, and i didn't grow up cooking, eating, or dreading Japanese food. I fell in love with the culture in my 20's, and am now endeavoring to learn more about cooking. Please excuse my spelling, general lack of knowledge, etc. I'm as gaijin as they get.

Now, let's dig in!
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I started this idea at 7:55. Damn daylight savings!

I started by boiling 2 pots: one for the Udon noodles and one for the dashi. I do own an instant version with the granules, but it's basically fish + MSG. Besides, dashi takes 15 minutes to make! Easy!

The udon went in first. Gentle rinse, saved half the packet for later ($1.59 serves 4 people).

After the dashi water was boiling, i reduced to a simmer. Then i added a 3" piece of kombu (seaweed). Adding it to hot water made a huge difference.

Udon only needs a few minutes. This is probably too frothy, but i turned it town and stirred a bit. You don't have to fully cook it, and you want it to be a bit tough still, since it cooks in the boiling dashi.

I added about 1/4 cup bonito flakes. Think fish food. These are fish shavings, which sounds creepy. But i saw a vendor in Tsukiji who was making these fresh on a seductive wooden contraption, and the smell was delicious!

I read a suggestion to put them in a disposable tea bag, since i always have trouble straining them. I tried a tea ball, but it opened up as soon as it hit the water. D'oh!

Udon gets drained, rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking process. This guy gets set aside.

I added some baby bok choy to the broth for extra flavor and nutrients. This is on a slow simmer.

I cut up 6 shitake mushrooms. These are big and beefy-- a lot different than the scrawny crap i buy at Findlay Market or Kroger's. Those are labelled as "shitaki" with an "i". I guess it's a mistranslation, since i can't find different definitions anywhere.

I add some of these guys- enoki mushrooms! They're so cute! I opted for the organic version, which i won't do again. The stems looked a bit gross.

Ahh, lotus. I bought this package pre-boiled and sliced for under $2. That's a steal, especially considering that preparing lotus requires gloves (otherwise, your hands get really itchy). Rinse, throw in the bowl. Bam.

The staple of virtually every single Japanese dish. Scallions, green onions, etc. Any good Asian market worth its salt will sell them for $0.49 a bunch. Take that, Kroger's. And, they're way beefier. These were scrawnier, so they were only $.39!

Cut them. Duh.

Oops, forgot music! I turned on Nagisa Ni Te from Osaka. I like 'em.

The beauty with Udon is that you prepare all the ingredients in a bowl and add the boiling hot broth just before serving. Oh man, is it good on a cold day. I should have opted for more color, like red beets or golden potatoes. But the lotus gives a nice texture variation- they're so crispy.

Next time, i'll put the noodles in a bowl first for better presentation.

Took a 10 minute break to let the dashi simmer and coax my baby to go to sleep again. Li'l fella...

Ooh, that's looking better!

Strained the dashi...

This was personally given to me by my friend Conrad, and it's a mean ass soy sauce. I'll never trust big box grocery soy sauce again. There's a reason why you can buy 20-30 different varieties at Asian grocers: they TASTE good!!!
This particular one's a bit strong, even though it's "light." Next time, i'll have the amount (i used 1/2 cup).

Added the soy sauce and mirin (cooking wine) to the stock. I tried substituting other things for mirin for a long time. It just doesn't taste as good. It's gotta be the real deal. Kikkoman is alright, but i might try another version in the future.
Let the dashi come to a strong, hard boil.

Right! Make some tea while the dashi is boiling. I used to be fancy and make loose leaf tea, but i tend to bag it these days. Mind you, not as good. It's the difference between a roll in the hay and smelling hay.

Hmm.. a bit dark. But the tastiest i've made yet. That instant stuff is for emergencies ONLY!

I served some homemade pickled cabbage on the side. I made this with cabbage, salt, grapefruit peel (in lieu of yuzu, which is hard to find around here), and kombu. The grapefruit is an A-MAZE-ING addition, and a nice pairing with the saltiness. I just finished off my jar, and i'll definitely make more.

See? It turned out okay! Taste was delicous.

But the renagade bonito definitely took its toll. I was ambivalent about the end of the stock, which failed the Tampopo test.

(If you haven't seen this, you NEED to, especially if you have any interest in cooking or Japanese film.)

Everything was ready to eat at 8:45! Subtracting 10 minutes for baby-tending, i'd say that's a pretty quick start-to-finish made from scratch healthy meal!