Winter is officially here, which means it’s the perfect time for cosy and delicious food! Our Comfort Cooking collection is full of amazing books with seasonal recipes from expert foodies like Julia Busuttil Nishimura, Josh Niland and more. Today we’re featuring a recipe for life-changing udon with soſt-boiled egg, hot soy and black pepper, straight from the pages of To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon.
Happy cooking!
Life-changing udon with soſt-boiled egg, hot soy and black pepper
Serves: 4
In a diminutive noodle shop called Shin Udon, a short walk from Shinjuku station in Tokyo, I savoured a bowl of udon noodles that would ruin me for all other noodle experiences. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare all noodles to this – the thick, chewy strands are made fresh, moments before they are served (we spent half an hour watching the noodle maker at work while we waited for a table). My bowl of udon with hot soy, soſt-boiled egg, butter and black pepper blew my mind and entranced my taste buds. As I slurped the toothsome, salty strands, I knew I was having a life-changing experience.
While there is no way to truly replicate this unforgettable experience at at home, my humble rendition of Shin Udon’s incomparable noodle dish is still satisfying and crave-worthy.
Ingredients
4 large eggs
800 g udon noodles
500 ml (2 cups) vegetable stock
3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
2 teaspoons mirin
80 g butter, cubed
4 shallots, finely sliced
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
sea salt and black pepper
Method
Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil. Add the eggs and set the timer for 6 minutes. As soon as the buzzer goes, immediately drain the eggs into a colander and place under cold running water until they are completely cold. (This will make very soſt-boiled eggs – if you prefer a firmer yolk, cook them for another minute.) Peel and set aside.
Cook the udon noodles in a large saucepan of salted water according to the packet instructions until al dente. This will take 1–3 minutes, depending on whether your noodles are fresh, vacuum-sealed or frozen. Drain, then scoop the hot noodles into four bowls.
Meanwhile, combine the stock, tamari or soy sauce and mirin in a small saucepan and place over low heat until hot.
Pour the hot soy sauce over each bowl of noodles and top with a soſt- boiled egg. Add a knob of butter and allow it to melt into the noodles. Add the shallot and scatter a generous amount of black pepper over the noodles (use as much pepper as you like, but this dish is intended to be very peppery). Finish with a little drizzle of sesame oil and sprinkle with sea salt.
—–Extracted from To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon (Plum, RRP $39.99), with photography by Hetty McKinnon. Out now.
To Asia, With Love
'To Asia, With Love is my homecoming, a joyous return to the humble, yet deeply nurturing flavours and meals of my childhood as a Chinese girl born in Australia. It is also a celebration of the exciting and delicious possibilities of modern Asian cooking.'
Recipes range from the traditional - salt and pepper eggplant, red curry laksa, congee, a perfectly simple egg, pea and ginger fried rice - to Hetty's uniquely modern...
RECIPE: Deep-fried bananas (godoh)! 
RECIPE: Pol roti from Lanka Food! 
RECIPE: Nadiya Hussain’s sweet and sour prawns
Comments
No comments