quick & easy 5-ingredient kimchi miso udon noodle soup

Quick and easy 5-ingredient kimchi miso udon noodle soup.

Even though I'm all partnered up, I'm the kind of person who actually doesn't mind cooking for one. In fact, I love making noodle soup for one. It's just so uncomplicated. No need to worry about dividing the portions. I can eat my noodles straight from the saucepan, and cleaning up is a breeze. Happily, I still get the opportunity to cook for just myself every now and then, and when I do, I seize the chance to make myself a simple and delicious noodle soup.

This kimchi miso udon noodle soup is one of my latest creations. I love that the short list of ingredients is capable of producing so much flavour. If you ever feel tired or lazy but you're still in the mood for a home-cooked meal, try this one-pot five-ingredient noodle soup recipe that is quick and easy to make. The recipe is wonderfully versatile, too - feel free to adjust or even swap some of the ingredients to suit your taste.

Spicy, umami kimchi udon noodles in a miso broth.

quick & easy 5-ingredient kimchi miso udon noodle soup
(serves 1)

90g / 3oz dried udon noodles
50g / 2oz minced pork (or: minced chicken or cubed tofu)
1 small handful chopped Asian greens (or: mixed salad leaves)
6 pieces kimchi
1 tablespoon miso

Cook the noodles briefly in a saucepan of boiling water, just enough to release some starch from the noodles so that the water turns cloudy. Drain the noodles, rinse with cold water and drain again.
Pour 1 + 2/3 cups of water into the saucepan with the noodles. Bring the mixture to boil again, and add the minced meat. (Hold back if you're using tofu - add that only during the last minute of cooking.)
Allow the mixture to simmer until the noodles and the meat are done - or even just slightly underdone, as they will continue to cook in the hot broth. Stir in the greens, and remove the saucepan from heat.
Add the kimchi - you may chop them up into smaller pieces prior to adding them, if you wish, or leave them whole if you're lazy (like me).
Allow the noodle soup to cool slightly for a couple of minutes or so. Submerge the spoonful of miso just under the surface of the broth, and use a fork to gradually loosen up the miso and whisk it in. Taste and add more kimchi or miso, if you like, to make it spicier or saltier.

Quick, easy, five-ingredient udon noodle soup with pork, vegetables and kimchi in a miso broth.

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haruaki, windsor

Haruaki on the 145 Chapel St, Windsor is a cheap and cheerful little Korean restaurant with a Japanese touch, perhaps not the type of place that the hip and the glitzy would go for, but certainly one that has its share of fans and regulars.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my parents are visiting at the moment. The last time they came over I treated them to lunch at Movida, and the food was fantastic, but mum and dad, used to the inexpensive delights in Malaysia, were nevertheless perturbed by how much I was shelling out for the meal, and insisted that they would be just as happy with good cheap food. So this time I took them to Haruaki.

I haven't been there for months, and apparently in that time they had changed hands. They also had a lunch special, which I immediately pointed out to my parents: "$5.90 for those dishes! See, that's cheap!"

Unsurprisingly, they opted for the $5.90 specials. The servings were small by Australian standards, but it was perfectly adequate as far as my parents were concerned, and they even offered me a little bit of theirs to taste.

Mum got the bulgogi beef don. The meat was tender and savoury, and mum kept commenting on how nicely cooked the rice was: fluffy, well-separated grains which had just the right levels of softness and moisture.

beef bulgogi on rice

Dad went for the spicy pork don. Hot, saucy and succulent. Yum!

spicy pork on rice

I splashed out on a non-special just under the 10-dollar mark and got the vegetable bibimbap. I just always find it so difficult to go past bibimbap when I have Korean food, and I like Haruaki's - delicious and done dolsot-style, which gave it that lovely crunchy golden crust at the bottom of the stone bowl.

vegetable dolsot bibimbap

It was a warm day and I really felt like a cool dessert, so I went for a goma ice cream to finish things off. Despite the generic-looking chocolate sauce and flaked almonds on top, and knowing it wasn't house-made (I asked - though admittedly I had some trouble communicating with our waitress, as her English wasn't very good, so who knows!), I really liked this, and so did my parents - it was luscious, creamy, and packed with the flavour of black sesame seeds. Just writing about it makes me want one right this moment.

goma (black sesame) ice cream

We didn't get any banchan (Korean side dishes) with our lunch, but for the prices I don't see that as an issue. I was happy with the meal and so were my parents. The food was still as satisfying as I remembered, even with the change in management and staff.

Haruaki's not too far away from where I am, but if it was just that bit closer, I would likely be bombarding it with takeaway orders every so often. With an abundance of Korean eateries in Melbourne, this may not be a place many would travel out of their way for, but it's definitely a place that most would love as their local.



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vegan with a punch: spicy japchae

I've been buying all sorts of things at the Korean grocery lately, and one of my recent purchases is dangmyeon, a type of cellophane noodle made from sweet potato starch. I'm familiar with rice vermicelli and bean thread noodles, but dangmyeon is pretty foreign to me, so I thought it would be fun to give it a whirl.

dangmyeon

As a shout out to my vegetarian friends, and after looking at various recipes for ideas, I decided to make a vegan dinner out of the dangmyeon, my version of the Korean japchae. After preparing the dangmyeon according to the packet instructions, I added kimchi, steamed silken tofu, fresh cucumber, soy sauce and sesame oil.

spicy vegan japchae

Toss, and it's ready to eat! The dangmyeon had a nice slippery texture with a bit of a bite - I think it has the potential to be pretty versatile and I will be using it in soups, salads and stir-fries.

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