Hōtō

Unsalted flat noodles cooked in the miso broth itself, thickening it as they go.

Pork, Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, pork.

Ingredients

the noodles

• 300 g plain flour
• 150 ml water

the pot

• 1.2 litres dashi
• 4 tablespoons miso
• 400 g pumpkin, in chunks
• 1 carrot, in half moons
• 150 g daikon, in half moons
• 100 g shiitake, sliced
• 150 g pork belly, sliced
• 1 leek, sliced
• 100 g aburaage, in strips

Method

1. COOKED IN THE BROTH, NOT BOILED SEPARATELY, and that is the difference from every udon on this site. The udon page boils its noodles in a large pan of water and rinses the starch off; here the raw noodles go straight into the soup and the starch they release is what thickens it. A clear broth is a sign it was done wrong.
2. NO SALT IN THE DOUGH, which follows from that. Salted noodles would season the broth unpredictably as they cook, and the miso is doing that job.
3. NO RESTING AND NO KNEADING TO SMOOTHNESS either. These are meant to be slightly irregular and chewy, not the springy noodle the udon page spends an hour developing.
4. Flour and water to a stiff dough, 5 minutes of rough kneading, then roll out to 4 mm and cut into WIDE flat strips about 2 cm across. Flour them well and keep them apart.
5. Pork rendered in the dry pot first, then the hard vegetables turned in the fat.
6. Dashi in, simmer 15 minutes until the daikon and carrot are nearly done.
7. PUMPKIN IS MEANT TO FALL APART. Some of it dissolving into the broth is the point -- it sweetens and thickens. Add it with the noodles, not before, or none of it survives whole.
8. Noodles in, shaking off the loose flour, and simmer 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then so they do not sit on the base.
9. MISO IN AT THE END, off the boil, worked through a ladle of the broth first. Boiled miso goes flat and grainy.
10. Leek and aburaage in for the last 2 minutes. Serve straight from the pot, very thick.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes