Japanese Lunch

Lately I've been obsessed with Japanese food. The light and airy flavors paired with savory soy sauce are addicting! I don't live anywhere near an Asian market so I have to use ingredients I've bought here and there from co-ops and make hodgepodge versions of Japanese food at home.

My favorite successes so far have been fried tofu and udon soup. For today's lunch I followed a recipe I found online for dashi stock and used that as my base. Dashi stock in Japanese cooking is what chicken broth is to Western cooking. It's really easy to make; just soak a piece of kombu kelp in a pot of water for 30 minutes then add a handful of bonito flakes and boil for five minutes. Strain and it's ready to use! Some recipes called for using dried anchovies, but I didn't have any of those.

In my soup bowl I put one sliced green onion, two sliced and blanched mushrooms, udon noodles, dashi stock, and cubed tofu. In

another version I added cut up pieces of nori. What I really wanted to make was miso soup, but I don't have any miso so I settled for using just dashi stock and it turned out really well.

Here's a picture.

On the side I had a small cup of sushi rice mixed with jade pearl rice and a cup of match tea.