Kitsune udon

Udon is a forever Japanese classic. Perfect when you want a light lunch or dinner, yet warming and full of flavour. I started to appreciate it properly while travelling in Japan and having to eat loads and loads of it- it was surely not enough! Traditionally it is a non vegan dish as dashi most of the time contains fish in it. I will share a recipe of vegan dashi broth that will help you to easily make a vegan udon. It can be served noodles and dashi broth on itself or with toppings – in this case, kitsune udon is with tofu.

Tips and insights:

• for this recipe you need aburaage tofu – it is deep-fried tofu pouches made by cutting tofu into thin slices and deep-fried two times. They are first fried at a lower temperature of 110-120 °C, which causes the tofu to expand in size and then deep fried again in higher 230-250°C temperature
• if you feel like experimenting, you can make your own aburaage tofu, here is the recipe that I followed to make it.
• if you don’t have an access to aburaage tofu, panfry thin slices of tofu – it will be as tasty!
• dashi recipe you can find here
• if you like udon, you can make more broth and freeze it.

Few things about foxes..

Kitsune in Japanese is a fox. I read a few theories why it is called fox udon and one about the similarity of foxes fur colour and aburaage tofu colour seems to make the most sense. Apparently, Japanese even describe “cook till golden brown” with a saying “cook till fox colour”!

In Japanese culture foxes have a very important mythological status, they are very intelligent beings and bring good fortune. Fox has a contradictory behaviour – it can be good or evil depending on the situation. You can see a lot of foxes in Shinto shrines as well as in Japanese folklore.

So, how about making your own kitsune udon?

Kitsune udon

mindyoureats Udon is a forever Japanese classic. Perfect when you want a light lunch or dinner, yet warming and full of… Soups udon, vegan, kitsune udon, japanese European

Serves: 2 Prep Time: 10 min Cooking Time: 10 min 10 min

Nutrition Facts 200 calories 20 grams fat

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

You will need:

• For the broth:
• 3 cup of dashi
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• .
• For tofu:
• 6 pieces aburaage tofu (or 180-200g block of firm tofu, sliced into 6 slices)
• 1/2 cup dashi
• 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar
• .
• For serving:
• 2 packets of udon noodles (usually they are packed into portions)
• spring onions

What to do?

To make broth:

- heat all ingredients in a pan, season with salt to your taste

To make tofu:

- cook all ingredients in a pan till sauce is reduced. Regularly flip tofu to be covered in the sauce.

For serving:
- follow instructions on a packet to cook udon noodles, put them in a bottom of a bowl
- pour the broth over the noodles
- put the tofu on top
- sprinkle generously with spring onions

Notes:

Dashi recipe: http://mindyoureats.com/dashi/