Vegetarian mains
Tofu miso udon bowl
This is the healthy, grown-up version of ramen instant noodles. It’s the savoury miso broth that is the back bone to this dish. You can use whatever greens you have to hand. Cooking the noodles separately removes some starch, then they reheat in the broth. There are few graceful ways to eat a bowl of noodles. The tried and tested method is to slurp them up with chopsticks over the bowl, stopping now and then to spoon up some of the broth.
Ingredients
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- 1 shallot, peeled
- 20g ginger, roughly chopped
- 1 small red chilli, deseeded
- 2 tbsp miso
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp tahini
- 800ml warm stock
- 1 leek, finely sliced
- 100g winter greens, cabbage or sprouts, finely sliced
- 200g tofu, cut into 1cm cubes
- 2 eggs, boiled medium-hard
- 150g udon noodles, cooked and cooled
Method
-
Step 1
Put the garlic, shallot, ginger and chilli into a food processor with the miso, mirin, tahini and 2 tablespoons of oil. Blend to a paste.
-
Step 2
Gently warm the paste in a saucepan until it starts to smell fragrant but doesn't burn; 2-3 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a very low simmer. Check and season with salt to taste.
-
Step 3
Add the leek, greens and tofu to the broth. Simmer for 5 minutes, until tender. Peel the eggs while you wait.
-
Step 4
Divide your cold noodles into 2 deep bowls. Ladle the broth, veg and tofu between the bowls. Garnish each with a halved egg.