Vegetarian mains
Broccoli, tofu and udon bowl with parsnip and peanuts
Miso is a fermented rice or soybean paste and is a fundamental building block of Japanese cuisine. It has a deeply savoury flavour and tastes hugely restorative. You can try and eat this with a fork and a spoon but the best way is with chopsticks, sucking up the noodles over the bowl and slurping the broth.
Cook's notes
We cook the noodles separately to remove some of the starch and let the heat of the broth reheat them at the end.
Ingredients
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 large or 2 small shallot(s)
- 25g ginger
- 1 red chilli
- 70g miso
- 1 tsp tahini
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp sunflower or light olive
- 200g udon noodles
- 1 low salt stock cube
- ½ head broccoli
- 200g marinated tofu
- 1 parsnip
- 40g salted peanuts
Method
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Step 1
Put a pan of salted water on to boil. Put a kettle of water on to boil as well. Peel the garlic clove and the shallot(s). Peel and finely grate the ginger. Deseed and finely slice the chilli. Put the garlic, shallot, 2 teaspoon of grated ginger, half the chilli, miso, tahini, vinegar and oil in the food processor.
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Step 2
Blend into a paste. Alternatively, finely chop the garlic, shallot and chilli and mix everything together in a bowl. Drop the noodles into the boiling water and cook for 8 minutes or until just tender. Drain and cool under cold running water immediately. Drain again and set to one side.
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Step 3
Crumble the stock cube into the measuring jug, add 700ml of boiling water from the kettle, mix well. Put the other pan on a low heat and add the spice paste. Warm gently until it starts to smell fragrant but doesn't burn, about 2 minutes. Add the stock, mix well and leave on a very low simmer.
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Step 4
Trim your broccoli, cutting away any tough looking stalk and splitting the larger florets lengthways into manageable pieces. You need just half in this recipe, save the rest for use in other meals. Cut the tofu into small half cm dice. Peel and wash your parsnip.
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Step 5
Using a good peeler peel it into long ribbons, turning it as you go until you reach the tougher core. Discard the core and slice the ribbons into thin strips, lengthways. Add the parsnip, broccoli and tofu to the broth. Simmer for 5 minutes until the broccoli and parsnip are tender.
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Step 6
Coarsely chop the peanuts while the veg cooks. Divide your noodles into deep bowls. Ladle the broth and the veg between the bowls. Garnish each with some chopped peanuts and the remaining sliced chilli.
