Udon noodle broth

This recipe is a really good one for a midweek evening when you've got home from work and you want something fresh and tasty but don't want to spend too long having to prepare or cook your dinner.  We came up with this dish off the cuff on an evening where we knew we wanted something light but flavoursome and we just used ingredients we happened to have in.  We liked it so much we've made it again recently and thought we would share the recipe.

We've used udon noodles in the recipe and they worked really well - they are often used in soups and broths and they hold up well for that purpose - however, we've also made it with regular wholewheat noodles and you could use egg or rice noodles just as easily.  All of our recipes are designed to play around with and this one is no exception, so use whatever you have at home.  The same goes for whatever type of meat substitute you choose to use.  Quorn pieces work really well in this dish but you could use tofu to make it vegan (fry the tofu until golden brown first if you do, just to give it a bit more texture) or you could use any other 'fake' chicken - some of which are vegan-friendly.  Meat eaters could use leftover roast chicken or fry some chunks of chicken breast before adding to the broth.  We've used mace to flavour the broth in this recipe but if you don't have any mace but do have Chinese five-spice or Szechuan pepper then either of those would work well in this dish too.  The vegetables can also be substituted but try to get a balance as it's nice to have some sweeter veg, like the carrots and baby corns, to compliment the more savoury broccoli.

Ingredients (serves 2 generously)

100g Quorn or tofu or mock chicken
1 large carrot
80g baby corn
100g broccoli
80g green beans
75g soya beans
2 portions (approx. 170g) udon noodles
2 lemons
2 cloves of garlic
1.5 tsp crushed ginger
1 tsp ground coriander
0.5 tsp ground mace
1.5 tsp sugar
0.5 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp dark soy
700ml veg stock
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
To garnish:

2 spring onions
Handful fresh coriander
1 red chilli

Preparation and cooking time: 25 minutes

Begin by preparing your vegetables; the green beans and baby corns can be left whole, the carrots should be sliced thinly and the broccoli florets should be cut in half or into quarters depending on size.  Crush your garlic using a garlic crusher or the back of your knife and a little salt.  We used shop bought crushed ginger for this recipe as it breaks down easily which works well for the broth, however you could use finely grated fresh ginger too.

Add half of you sesame oil to a saucepan and warm over a moderate heat.  If you can't get hold of sesame oil then use a vegetable or sunflower oil.  When the oil is hot add your garlic and ginger and stir until it is beginning to soften, this will only take a minute or two.  You don't want to brown the garlic or ginger, you just want to soften it and allow the flavours to infuse with the oil.  Add in the coriander and mace and continue to stir for another minute or two - this should form a loose paste.  Pour in your vegetable stock and add the soy sauce, mirin and sugar.  Turn up the heat to bring to the boil and then add in the Quorn, tofu or chicken substitute.  Leave for 5 minutes and whilst this is cooking bring another saucepan of water up to the boil for your noodles.  We cook the noodles separately from the broth as the noodles tend to leach out starch when cooking which can make the broth have a more gloopy texture and they also absorb a lot of the liquid, making your soup more like a wet stir fry.

Whilst the broth is simmering and the pan of water is coming to the boil, thinly slice the spring onions and chilli, and roughly chop a good handful of fresh coriander.  This will garnish and flavour the finished broth.  Add all of the remaining vegetables (including the soya beans, which you can buy frozen in most supermarkets) to the broth and bring back to the boil.  The noodles will take 4-5 minutes to cook and this is how long you want the vegetables to blanch in the broth for as this will leave them with a nice bite.  Add the noodles to the separate pan of boiling water at the point your broth has come back to the boil.

Cover both pans and leave for 4-5 minutes on a gentle boil.  About 2 minutes before the end, add the juice of two lemons to the broth then re-cover and leave to finish cooking.  When the noodles are cooked, drain and divide them between two large bowls.  Ladle over your broth and then garnish with the spring onions, chilli and coriander.  Drizzle over the remaining sesame oil and serve.

This is a really satisfying soup - it is fresh and light but will leave you feeling nicely full.  It has a nice balance of heat and spice along with sweet, sour and sharp notes.  It's an easy recipe to tinker with depending on what you happen to have in at the time and it's a good way of packing in plenty of your five a day into one meal.

Give it a try and let us know your thoughts via email or leave a comment below.