Culinary Adventures of MadZak

When I was in Taiwan I had a very delicious beef noodle soup and have been longing for a soup to that caliber. Luckily January is when I started to perfect my vegetable stock and figured I’d give it a shot with some vegetable noodle soup.

The broth is what really seals this dish as the ingredients do nothing but soak up the flavor. If you can make the broth yourself, you are better off as store bought just won’t cut it!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 carrot (peeled)
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 wood-ear (any fungus like mushrooms)
• 1 tomato
• 1 tablespoon basil
• 1 tablespoon thyme

METHOD:
Combine vegetable broth and water in a pot and bring to boil. Add frozen udon noodles, carrots, onions, wood-ear or mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, basil, and thyme. Once frozen udon noodles start to break apart, go ahead and add the sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce.

Once vegetables and noodles are soft, remove from heat, add salt and pepper, and serve.

This dish is somewhat of a stable in our household. Switching between rice and noodles helps keep things lively but in the end, I love me some noodles! This is a standard stir fry with just soy sauce. The vegetables are delicious as shown, but feel free to change our add whatever you are in the mood for. Try some nice hot green tea with this meal and break out those chopsticks!