Japanese Food Fast

By David Hu

Every culture has its convenience foods.  Having just returned from Japan, I’d like to share a Japanese quick meal, a simple noodle soup, using just a few ingredients from an Asian grocery.   This main dish soup should take less than 15 minutes of total time to prep and cook.

Ingredients:
Japanese soup base (tsuyu or memmi)
Somen noodles
Assorted toppings (see below)

A Japanese soup base like tsuyu or memmi is a great shortcut to preparing the broth.  All you do is add water and heat. Look for packaging with directions in English.  While the soup base is simmering, start on the somen noodles.

Somen is a very thin, flour-based noodle. The noodles are bundled in individual servings. Somen will cook in 2 ½ minutes.

When the noodles are done, drain and put into individual soups bowls. Ladle the soup broth over the noodles and arrange the toppings.

For toppings, you can use kamaboko (Japanese fish cake found in the refrigerated case of Asian supermarkets), strips of nori (seaweed) and sliced green onion. Or you can improvise with whatever you have on – ham strips, thinly-sliced pork, cubes of tofu, steamed bok choi or spinach, or omelet cut into strips.

Itadakimasu – bon appétit!

Here are ways to use some other convenient Japanese foods.

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