U is for Udon Noodle and Vegetable Soup (Jennifer)

Hello!

This week's letter was a challenge. U--really?? How many recipes/ingredients can you think of that begin with the letter "u"? It's kind of like a trivia question gone crazy. Jessica did a great post earlier this week of an Upside Down Cake, so I'm bringing on the salty/savory side of the letter "u" with Udon Noodle and Vegetable Soup.

This week's recipe was inspired by an excellent salad my grandmother brought to a beach cookout my family hosted a few weeks back. Her salad used soba noodles mixed with a sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey and a few other things like ginger and garlic. Yum! It was so good and a nice change from the ubiquitous appearance of beach cookout foods like macaroni salad or potato salad. I combined my grandmother's recipe with this recipe from Steamy Kitchen to get a pumped up version I like to call Udon Noodle and Vegetable Soup.


Udon Noodle and Vegetable Soup

Mix of vegetables of your liking (I used snow peas, carrots, mushrooms, edamame, and spinach)
2- 32 ou. containers of vegetable broth
1- 9.5 ou. pkg of Udon noodles
1- 2 in. piece of ginger, grated
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 stalks of green onion, sliced thinly
3 packets Miso soup mix**
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame seed oil
1/4 c. honey

**Finding real miso would be ideal. My grocery store didn't have it and I was too lazy to drive all over town looking for it, so I grabbed these instead. Real miso would provide for a richer, more concentrated flavor. The Steamy Kitchen recipes calls for two tablespoons of shiro miso (white miso).

Cook your Udon noodles according to the package instructions.

Begin to prepare your vegetables. Slice your carrots thin so they won't take too long to cook in the vegetable broth.  

 Once your Udon noodles are done, drain and set them aside. In the meantime, pour your vegetable broth into the pot and cook on medium high heat. Add in the honey, rice wine vinegar and sesame seed oil. Add in vegetables, beginning with those that will take the longest to cook. Next, dump your packets of miso soup into the broth, followed by your minced garlic and ginger.

Add your spinach last as this will cook down much faster than all other vegetables. This is the last step before filling your bowl with soul-soothing soup. 

Review:

This soup was good, but probably could have been better with the use of real miso. It was lacking the punch of flavor I had wanted it to achieve, but I'll report back tomorrow to let you know if a night in the fridge was needed for it all to mesh together. Overall, I would really enjoy this soup on a fall or winter evening, or perhaps any time when I'm feeling a little under the weather. It's clear broth and vegetables are very satisfying and filling. Next time though, I'll search a little harder for the miso!