Vegetarian mains
Purple sprouting broccoli and miso noodles with tofu and spring greens
This is the healthy grown-up version of ramen instant noodles. We cook the noodles separately to remove some of the starch and let the heat of the broth reheat them at the end. 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.
Cook's notes
The best way to shred your spring greens is to take the stripped leaves, stack 4 or 5 in a pile and roll them up like a cigar. Now cut into strips widthways. You get a lot slicing done for your efforts.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 garlic clove
- 25g ginger
- 1 red chilli
- 1 shallot
- 70g miso
- 1 tsp tahini
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- sunflower or vegetable oil
- 2 sticks rice noodles
- 1 low salt stock cube
- 1 leek
- 150g purple sprouting broccoli
- 200g tofu
- 100g spring greens
- salt
Method
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Step 1
Put 2 eggs in a large pan of cold salted water and put it on to boil. When the pan comes to the boil set a timer for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, remove the eggs but leave the water on the boil. Cool the eggs immediately under cold running water.
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Step 2
Meanwhile, put a kettle on to boil. Peel 1 garlic clove and the shallot. Peel and finely chop or grate the ginger. Deseed and finely slice the chilli. Put the garlic, shallot, 2 teaspoon of grated ginger, two thirds of the chilli, the miso, tahini, vinegar and 1 tablespoon of oil in the processor. Blend into a paste.
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Step 3
Alternatively, finely grate the shallot and garlic clove and mix into a paste with the other ingredients. Drop the noodles into the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and cool under cold running water immediately.
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Step 4
Set to one side. Peel the shells from your boiled eggs. Crumble the stock cube into the measuring jug, add 800ml of boiling water from the kettle, mix well. Put a fresh pan on a low heat and add the spice paste. Warm gently until it starts to smell fragrant but doesn't burn, 2-3 minutes. Add the stock, mix well and leave
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Step 5
on a very low simmer. Check and season with salt to taste. Trim the top and bottom of the leek. Cut in half lengthways, then into very thin shreds. Wash well to remove any grit. Wash and drain your spring greens. Cut out any large stalks. Discard the stalks and roughly shred the leaves (see cook's note). Trim your purple sprouting broccoli, cutting away any tough looking ends and splitting the larger florets lengthways into manageable pieces. Keep any small and healthy
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Step 6
looking leaves attached. Cut the tofu into a small ½ cm dice. Add the spring greens, broccoli, leeks and tofu to the broth. Simmer for 5 minutes, until the broccoli is tender. Divide your cold noodles into deep bowls. Ladle the broth and the veg between the bowls. Garnish each with a quartered egg and the remaining sliced chilli.
