Kitsune Udon

Ingredients:

• 8 Ounces Parboiled Udon; Defrosted if frozen

• 2 Pieces Inari Age (basically marinated tofu pouches); Defrosted if frozen

• ½ Green Onion/Scallion 

• 3 Slices Fish Cake; Defrosted if frozen

• 1 ½ Cup Dashi (see notes)

• 1 Tablespoon Aji-Mirin

• ½ Tablespoon Soy Sauce

Notes: 

So for this recipe, most of the ingredients were bought at a specialty Japanese store (overnighted to my house) and then defrosted. The main reason for this is lack fo resources. Dashi is usually made using a kind of dried kelp called kombu and dried bonito flakes; neither of which I was able to purchase at that time. Instead, I have dried granules of dashi which I melt down before adding to the broth. This is the same situation with the inari age; if you can buy tofu pouches and then season them yourself, you’re going to get a better flavour/texture than if you buy them premade. However, they’re much more expensive than the marinated kind and harder to get, at least for me. If you’re able to get your hands are fresher noodles, inari age and dashi, I would do that. So keeping all this in mind, the steps for this recipe is going to omit how to make dashi since I didn’t make mine.

Steps:

1. Defrost all frozen ingredients, if any ingredients were frozen. 

2. Create dashi using your preferred/available method.

3. Combine dashi, mirin and soy sauce in a small pot. Boil.

4. Add udon noodles to small pot and reduce to simmer until noodles have separated but still have a lightly chewy texture. Generally, this should only take one to two minutes for parboiled noodles. 

5. While noodles are cooking, take inari age and remove some of the excess liquid.

6. Cut fish cake into three, even slices.

7. Cut half of green onion.

8. Pour noodles + broth into an appropriately sized bowl and top with green onion + inari age + fish cake. I also like to add sesame seeds for texture.