Japanese Noodle Soup:  Serves 6
 

This soup is the ultimate comfort food.  If any of the ingredients are not on your “favorite food list”, you can omit them.  Once you have all the ingredients, this soup comes together easily and you only need a salad to have a wonderful meal.  It also has many healthy ingredients and can be entirely vegetarian if you use vegetable broth and omit the dashi.

 8 cups( 2- 32 ounce cartons) chicken or vegetable broth
3 tsp. instant dashi *
1 heaping Tbs. dried wakame (seaweed)*
5 dried shitake mushrooms
1 14 ounce block extra firm tofu, cut into one inch by one inch strips
1 small head napa cabbage, cut into slices*
5 scallions, chopped
1 16 oz. bag Pan fried noodle Hong Kong style or any dried noodle*
1 cup shelled edaname (soy beans)
1 Tbs. fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
2 Tbs. miso
Shichimi Togarashi (red pepper and sesame seed spice blend)*                                               
                  The dashi is in the center and the shichimi togarashi is to the right.

*  Note about ingredients:  Dashi, wakame, napa cabbage, shichimi togarashi and edaname can all be purchased at Wegmans and other grocery stores with good Asian sections.  I have posted a picture of all these ingredients so you know what you’re looking for.  The edaname are often found in the frozen section in their pods.  But at the Asian grocers you can find them frozen and already out of the pods which is much more convenient.  The noodles are found fresh in the refrigerator section of the Asian grocery store but you can use any noodle that you’d like including dry noodles such as soba or even spaghetti. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE INGREDIENTS CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE LEFT SIDE OF THIS PAGE:  “FOOD THESAURUS” Read the rest of this entry »