Mushroom Udon & Pickled Kombu and Shiitake Mushrooms

Noodles are one of my favorite breakfast foods. There’s so many types of noodles and so much room for customization that I feel like I can’t get tired of them. If you only look at my IG posts, it might seem like my diet or Cantonese cuisine is very meat heavy, but this is for completely different reasons that I won’t get into this post. So I wanted to take some time to make something as vegetarian or possible even vegan by American standards.

For a long time, I’ve always had two difference voices in my head about the idea of vegetarianism. I’ve heard things growing up from my parents about how some monks and other vegetarian Chinese people include dried oysters in jai 齋 (aka, monk’s food) because bivalves are not considered animals. I’m not sure how far back this goes, but I’ve heard my parents tell me that vegetarian Chinese associate blood as a feature of an animal and when you cut open a oyster or clam, there’s no red blood. Therefore, they’re not considered to be an animal. Plus, the practice of almsgiving does allow Buddhist monks to eat meat as they’re not supposed to turn away any offering of food.

Since this is my first noodle with soup post, I have to say that the one hill I will die on is that I will never do a IG noodle pull photo. To me the noodle pull is complete garbage. When I started noticing this on IG at first, I thought it was a imitation of gooey cheese from a freshly cut pizza slice, which makes sense for pizza. But with noodles, the awkwardly sized amount that’s picked up is so unreasonable and unrealistic for a bite that you’ll always have to chomp through them. Towards the end of the meal, no matter what kind of noodles, you’ll have a sad sprinkling of bitten noodles. I also see this unrealistic noodle twirl with chopsticks that tells me this should be done with spaghetti and a fork, but makes zero sense with noodles and chopsticks. This sort of thing screams to me that this is a largely white foodie phenomena - clueless with chopsticks and overly performative with Asian food in general.

A lot of this recipe ended up being Japanese influenced and it’s natural for me include this since I grew up in Honolulu where there’s been a long influence of Japanese cuisine in Hawaii’s local culture. This one is more of shio (salt) based broth and I like this because of the simplicity of flavor and whether or not your broth has katsuobushi in it, I get a subtle oceanic quality in this style of broth. Growing up in Hawaii, I was never a beach person, but this broth reminds me of the ocean that it helps me with any feelings of homesickness.

The nice thing about this recipe is at the end of it, all of the kombu and shiitake mushrooms can be used for pickling for later on, so don’t throw them away!

Shio Style Shiitake Broth Recipe:
4 quarts of water
1 piece of kombu (about 8x10 inches)
100g dried shiitake mushrooms (about 2 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup and 2 tbsp mirin
3/4 cup shiro shoyu
Salt, to taste

In a large pot add 4 quarts of water. Rinse the kombu or wipe with a wet towel, to remove any dust. Add the kombu to the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat.

Meanwhile, add the shiitake mushrooms to a large bowl and rise them as well to clean them of any dust from how they were dried and stored. Set the shiitake mushrooms aside.

When the pot of water comes to a boil, continue to boil the kombu for 1 minute. Remove the kombu and set this aside. Add the shiitake mushrooms and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and steep for about 20-25 minutes or until the mushrooms are bloomed. This depends on how large the mushrooms are, but it is good to stir them half way through.

Strain the stock and reserve the mushrooms. Return the stock to the pot and bring it to a gentle boil. Add the shiro shoyu, mirin, and salt. You should also salt this pretty strongly, but to to taste of course.

Cool the broth and you can keep this in the fridge for use or freeze it.

Mushroom Udon Recipe:
Shio Style Shiitake Broth, as needed per bowl
Udon noodles (frozen preferred)
Mushrooms of your choice
Green onions
Sesame oil

In a large pot, bring water to boil for udon noodles. In a second pot, add some shio style shiitake broth and bring this to a boil.

In the meantime, clean and roughly chop some mushrooms of your choice (I used beech and maitake in the photo). You can also estimate how much each person will want to eat. When the broth comes to a boil, add the mushrooms and reduce to a simmer, you can leave this simmering for about 2-3 minutes.

I like to use frozen udon noodles and use the instructions of how long to cook them.

Meanwhile, thinly slice some green onions. I generally like 1 green onion per bowl.

Strain the noodles in a bowl. Using a small strainer, fish out the mushrooms and add them to each bowl. Add broth to each bowl and top with green onions and a drizzle of sesame oil.

Any heated extra broth that wasn’t added to bowls can be saved for the next meal with the rest of the broth that you made.

Pickled kombu and shiitake mushrooms - bonus recipe!
Brine recipe:
500 g water
150 g. rice vinegar
13 g. Salt
13 g. Shoyu (no need for shiro shoyu, just use regular kind)
39 g. Sugar

Combine water, rice vinegar, salt, shoyu, and sugar in a pitcher and set aside.

When the kombu and shiitake mushrooms have cooled enough to handle, you can start this. With a pair of scissors, cut off any tough stems from the shiitake mushrooms. Then quarter each of them or cut them into bite sized pieces of your choice. Slice kombu into bite sized pieces as well and mix the kombu and mushrooms. Add these two to a jar. Cover with brine and wait for at least 3 days before eating.