The beauty of trying out so many different cuisines is that the repertoire of comfort foods also becomes very vast. So comfort foods are no longer limited to foods that I ate in my mother's or grandmother's kitchen. I now have an entire list of comfort foods for every cuisine that I have tried. It means that no matter what part of the world I'm in, there can be something that is available locally which can comfort me on a cold or gloomy day. Japanese food is no exception and on a day when I am looking for something warm and comforting, I turn to Niku Udon.

This is a noodle soup with thick, al dente udon noodles in a light dashi based stock. The highlight of the soup is thinly sliced beef cooked with scallions, soy sauce and lightly sweetened with sugar. The dish is very simple but the delicate balance of all flavors makes it a true delight. The recipe is adapted from this recipe on Just One Cookbook . This blog continues to be my source of inspiration to learn more about cooking Japanese food and I cannot praise it enough for the details on ingredients, recipes, very detailed description of all the steps.

Ingredients:

2 servings/packages of Udon

For Beef:

1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 Japanese leek or 2 green scallions (thinly sliced)

200 gms beef shabu shabu / thinly sliced ribeye

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 - 1 tsp sugar

For Soup:

3-4 cups dashi

1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1 1/2 tablespoon mirin

1 1/2 tsp sugar

Salt to taste

For toppings:

Narutomaki slices (fish cake - I usually do not have this at hand)

1 green onion/scallion (thinly sliced)

Shichimi Togarashi / Nanami Togarashi (to taste)

Method:

1. In a pot/saucepan, add dashi, sugar, soy and mirin and bring to a boil.

2. Taste the soup and add salt according to taste.The flavor should be complete at this stage without adding any further soy sauce or sugar. Cover and keep on low heat. Cut the meat into bite sized pieces.

3. In a pan over medium high heat, add the oil. Once it is heated, add the scallions to it followed by the thinly sliced beef. Sear the beef nicely before moving it around.

4. Once the meat it seared, add the soy sauce and sugar to it and mix. When the sauce thickens slightly, remove from the heat. (I sometimes like to add some nanami togarashi to the beef at this stage to give it a hint of spice)

5. Boil some water in the meantime and add salt to it. Cook the udon noodles in the boiling water for less than one minute and place it in the bowls.

6. Place the cooked beef on the noodles and sprinkle some thinly sliced scallions on top. Top with the dashi based broth To make it spicy, add some nanami togarashi. Serve hot.