Udon Noodle Soup

Hi friends... It has been a long time since I updated the blog with any recipe. Sorry about that. From now on I will try to be regular. Since it is winter and all I want is a hot bowl of soup, I thought why not put up the recipe of this simple yet delicious soup. It if filling but not heavy. Good for dinner or lunch, just add some tofu to it and it is a complete meal. This soup calls for some sea weed and miso. Miso is fermented barley paste. You can get miso from your local Asian stores or whole foods market. There a a few different kinds of miso, but if you haven't tried it please get the white miso, it is very soft in taste, other types may get a bit over whelming. Sea weed can be omitted from the recipe, but this makes the soup a lot flavourful, try using it if you haven't tried it yet.  I have not used udon noodles in this soup [the picture], I ran out of them and had to have this soup, so managed with what i could get from the store near by. If you do not get udon noodles, you can use any thick noodle for this soup. Enough of me yappi'n...So here goes the recipe.

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

1. Udon noodles - 1 bundle, cooked as per the instructions on the bag.
2. spring onions - 1 bunch, finely chopped
3. carrots - 1, peeled and finely chopped
4. Garlic - 3 pods well minced
5. Bell peppers - 1/2 a cup of any or all colours mixed, finely chopped 
6. Sea weed - 1 sheet
7. Miso - 2 to 3 tsp
8. Tofu - 1/2 cup cubes [optional]
9. Oil - 2 tsp
10. White or Rice vinegar - 2 to 3 tsp
11. Soy Sauce - 3 tsp
12. Salt and pepper - to taste
13. Water - enough to make a thin borth of all the ingredients and boil noodles

Method:

• Put the noodles to cook as per instructions on the bag it came in. Make sure to add adequate salt to the water to slat the noodles.
• Heat oil in a pot which can fit in all the ingredients.
• Add garlic, carrots, spring onions, bell peppers one after the other sauteing each for a few seconds till the sweat.
• Add a pinch of salt to let them cook faster.
• Add enough water to make a broth it has to be watery. Let the water come to a boil.
• Now add vinegar and soy sauce and let it cook for a few minutes.
• Now mix miso with a bit of water to make the paste easily soluble in the broth so that it does not form lumps. Make sure you do not make it very watery. Add miso to the broth and let it cook for a few seconds.
• Now tear the sea weed sheet into a few pieces and add to the soup. stir well.
• Add the cooked and drained noodles to the broth stir ... turn the stove off. Taste it if you need salt and pepper.. if you do, this is the time to add it. Miso and soy sauce are pretty salty, you have to be careful with salt when you use both of these ingredients together. let it sit for a few minutes and serve.

Quick Chawal ka Kheer [Sweetened rice]

Traditionally this recipe takes quite sometime to cook. Since I am not known for my patience, I always try to find out ways to reduce cook and prep time. This sweet cooks faster if you already have cooked rice on hand. Wonderful sweet for festivals, guests or any special occasion. A good thing about this sweet is you can flavour it with almost any fruit or nut essences. If at all you flavour, I recommend you use finely chopped nuts and pureed fruit... yummm!

Prep time: 15 mins (includes rice cooking)

Cook time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

1. Rice - 1/4 cup cooked
2. Dry fruits and Nuts - such as raisins, almonds, cashew, pistachio finely chopped, 2 tbsp [all or any.. whatever you have on hand]
3. Condensed milk - 14 oz can
4. Saffron : a pinch soaked in a tbsp of milk for 30 mins (optional)
5. Cardamom: 2 pods crushed
6. Clarified Butter - 2 tsp 
7. Milk - about 1/4 cup (only if needed)

Method:

• Heat a pot big enough to hold all the ingredients on medium flame.
• Add clarified butter and give it a few seconds to heat up.
• Add cardamom and all the dry fruits and nut you want. Saute for a few seconds.
• Add cooked rice and mix in withe rest of the ingredients.
• Add condensed milk and saffron and let it cook for 7 to 8 minutes.
• If you think the sweet is getting very thick you may add milk to thin it.
• Please refer to tips if you wish to use fruit in the sweet.

Serving Suggestion:

Serve it chilled in the refrigerator, It tastes almost like an ice cream if you have used any fruit essence or fresh fruit. You can also garnish it with freshly chopped fruit like mango, banana and etc.

Tips:

1. You may you fruits like mango, pineapple, banana and strawberry.. go ahead and experiment with the fruits you want to try. However, remember that highly citric fruits may curdle the milk in the dish.

2. If you decide to use fruit in the sweet. Take 1/4 cup of the fruit's pulp and add it while you are adding condensed milk and let it cook. If you also want to add essence, make sure you use 1/2 tsp of the same fruit's essence or use vanilla essence, it enhances almost any flavour.

Burger

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook time: 0

Servings: I made for 2 people.

I made good use of the Lentil Burger Patties I made this week. I had shoved them in the freezer after making them. This Monday was feeling too lazy to cook, I had some ciabatta bread in the freezer, so grabbed both of them chopped a few veggies like, tomatoes, onion and romaine lettuce and also sliced some mozzarella cheese. I chopped 2 slices of a salad tomato and chopped the rest in to chunks. Tore lettuce leaves, used 1 leaf each to layer the burger used the rest in the salad. I chopped 2 slices of a big onion to layer the burger and stored the rest away. Sliced a few strips of mozzarella, layered it on patty, microwaved to melt it. Then cut the rest of the strips into bits and added it to the salad. Topped the salad with Sun-dried tomato dressing, layered the burger as you can see in the picture. I also mixed tomato ketchup, mustard and some old blue cheese dressing, mixed them together and smothered it on insides of the bread. 

Once the patty is ready, it only takes 10 minutes to fix all this. So working people, spare 2 hours in the weekend and you will not have to worry about lunch or dinner for atleast for 3 times in the week.