Japanese pork and noodle soup
50 min
My version of a tasty and healthy noodle soup - a complete meal in itself with braised pork belly, pak choi, beansprouts, leek, mushrooms, egg & noodles in a sweet soy broth. This is very 'clean and subtle' tasting. Nice with a little extra ginger paste or wasabi stirred in also.
3 people made this
Ingredients
Serves: 2
- 2 pork belly slices, rind removed
- 1 leek (white part roughly chopped), green part julienned
- tsp ginger paste
- 100ml japanese soy sauce
- 1 star anise
- 2 tabs sake or white wine
- 1 tabs sugar
- 2 large chestnut or button mushrooms, sliced paper thin
- 2 handfuls beansprouts
- 1 hard boiled egg, cooled
- 2 medium egg noodle nests
- 1 cup chicken stock
- fresh ground pepper to taste
- 3 pak choi or bok choi
Method
Prep:10min ›
Cook:40min ›
Ready in:50min
- Slice each rasher of pork into three slices.
- Heat a fry pan with a little vegetable oil, Brown off the pork until it has taken on a nutty brown colour.
- Have a saucepan ready. Add the pork to the saucepan and add water to just cover the pork. Add the white part of the leek, ginger and star anise.
- Bring to the boil. Add the soy and sake (or white wine). Reduce temperature to a gentle simmer, remove any 'scum' that appears on the top from the pork. Make a loose lid from tin foil and sit directly over the pork and liquid.
- Simmer for 1 hour.
- Turn off the heat and allow the pork to cool in the liquid (this is important to penetrate the aromatic flavours). Add the peeled hard boiled egg to the liquid also and turn occasionally to colour.
- Once pork is cooled, remove and set aside. If the egg hasn't coloured sufficiently, place the egg along with some liquid in a separate bowl. Cut each pork slice in half so that you end up with 12 bitesize pieces.
- At this stage the pork, egg and liquid can be chilled until ready to serve.
- In a deep soup bowl or soup plate place the mushrooms and beansprouts.
- Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan and add the cooking juices also. Season to taste with pepper.
- Cook the noodles as per packet instructions (approx 4 mins), drain and add to the bowl. Re-heat the pork in the microwave or poach in the stock to heat through.
- Wilt the pak choi in boiling water. Be careful not to over cook.
- Add the pork to the bowl. Slice the egg in half and place a half on the side in each bowl. Add the drained pak choi. Ladle over the broth and garnish with the julienned leek.
