Origin of the dish: Japan
The best time of the year, soup season! On cold days, the ultimate comfort food for me is noodle soup, full of fragrant Asian flavours to warm me up.
There are so many kinds of noodle soup but my favourite one is chicken noodle soup.
It’s usually made of a lot of fresh veggies, chicken or pork, noodles and a deliciously seasoned chicken broth.
I like making everything from scratch: homemade noodle and chicken broth with fresh ingredients. It makes it so much healthier and flavourful, but if you don't have enough time to prepare these ingredients, you can always get fresh wheat thick noodles in an Asian market and canned chicken broth in any supermarket. They will work just fine!
Once you'll try to make this hearty dish at home, I'm sure it will become your new favourite comfort food too!
Ingredients for 2 people
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
150g sliced pork or chicken breast
1 carrot, sliced
2 garlic cloves
1 litre / 4 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablesoon sugar
thumb-sized piece of ginger, sliced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
4oz / 100 gr fresh or dried noodles
4oz /100g baby spinach
1 boiled egg, peeled and halved
1/2 cup chopped coriander
Directions
Prepare your noodles first by boiling them al dente. Rinse the noodles with running water, drain and set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a large non-stick skillet. Add 1 garlic clove, 1 slice of ginger and saute for 1 minute, then add pork/chicken and saute 2 minutes longer. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce until meat is caramelized. Set aside.
In a large saucepan, prepare the chicken broth and bring it to boil, add the sliced carrot, the rest of the ginger,1 tablespoon of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil. Once they are cooked, reduce the heat and simmer.
Add noodles in the broth and cook 1 minutes longer until noodles are tender.
Place noodles in bowls. Pour over soup, Allow the spinach to wilt slightly in the bowl before serving. Add the sliced caramelized meat and the halved egg. Sprinkle over sesame seeds and coriander before serving.
The playlist
Here is my Japanese list of songs. Since we are talking about a soupy dish, coudn't be there any other better song to start this playlist with?!
Press the play button and find it out :)