Udon

For a cultured fellow like me, Japan is one of the most amazing places. With things like Godzilla, pokemon, and samurai it is a great place. Oh, and there is the food. For this post, I decided to try and recreate some of that food.
Udon Noodle Soup
8 ounces shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 ounces udon noodles
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
2 tsps sugar
1/2 tsp instant dashi stock
2 scallions sliced

1. Cook Udon in boiling water for 2-3 minutes
2. Meanwhile heat stock, soy, mirin, sugar, dashi to boil in a saucepan.
3. Add shrimp, cook for 2 minutes until cooked through.
4. Drain udon, divide between two bowls, and pour shrimp and soup over noodles, top with scallions and serve.


This was a good recipe, however there was something wrong when I did it. What it was is that i did not have any of the dashi stock. One of the problems with that is that it provides the fifth taste, in addition to sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. In Japanese culture they use a fifth taste, usami or savory. But because I did not have the dashi stock, that flavor was not realized, and instead I used some miso paste to try and replicate some of that flavor, but that left it a bit too salty.