Kitsune Udon

So what is kitsune udon?  The noodle soup consists of chewy thick udon noodles, clear
dashi broth, and aburaage seasoned well with soy sauce, mirin, and sugar.  Kitsune udon is served as a hot noodle soup, but in the steamy summer months, it is also served chilled with a little bit of dashi based sauce poured over the top.
Kitsune Udon

Ingredients

• 2 pkgs Udon noodles (I like sanuki udon, see Notes)

Dashi:

• 2 ½ cups water
• 1 kombu (dried kelp) (2" x 5" or 5 cm x 12 cm)
• 1 ½ cups katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) (15 g = .5 oz) (skip if vegetarian/vegan)

Noodle Soup:

• 1 Tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp usukuchi Soy Sauce (light color) (or regular soy sauce)
• ½ tsp Kosher salt

Toppings:

• 4 Inariage (seasoned fried tofu pouch) (See Notes for homemade recipe)
• Narutomaki (fish cakes) (skip for vegetarian/vegan)
• 1 green onion/scallion

Instructions

1. Gather all the ingredients. If you don't have dashi yet, here are 3 ways to make dashi.

Make Dashi

1. Put the kombu and 2 ½ cup water in a measuring cup for at least 30 minutes. If you have time, soak for 3 hours or up to half day. Kombu’s flavor comes out naturally from soaking in water. If you don’t have time at all, skip soaking.
2. Transfer kombu and water to a saucepan.  Slowly bring to a boil over medium low heat. 
3. Just before boiling (you will see bubbles around the edges of the pan), remove the kombu. If you leave the kombu inside, the dashi will become slimy and bitter. Now this broth is Kombu Dashi (vegetarian/vegan). Add the katsuobushi and bring it to a boil again. 
4. Once the dashi is boiling, reduce the heat, simmer for just 15 seconds, and turn off the heat.  Let the katsuobushi sink to the bottom, about 10-15 minutes. Strain the dashi through a fine mesh sieve set over a saucepan.

Make Udon Soup

1. In the saucepan that already has dashi, add mirin, sugar, soy sauce, and kosher salt and bring to boil.  Once boiling, turn off the heat and set aside.

Prepare Toppings

1. Squeeze excess liquid from the inariage (or you can keep it as it is).  Cut the green onion into thin slices.  Slice the Narutomaki fish cake into 1/8 inch (3 mm).

Prepare Udon Noodles

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil for udon noodles.  When everything is ready, start cooking udon noodles.  Frozen udon noodles (my favorite kind) takes only 1 minute from putting into boiling water.  If you use dry noodles, follow the package instructions.  Heat up the noodle soup.
2. Pick up the noodles in a strainer or drain hot water.  Make sure to remove excess water (which will end up diluting your soup).

Assemble

1. Serve udon noodles and soup in serving bowls and top with inariage, narutomaki, green onion and sprinkles of shichimi togarashi.

Recipe Notes

Dashi: It's really important to have good flavorful dashi for this recipe.  Although you can make dashi easily with dashi powder or dashi packet, I encourage you to make your own dashi because the broth tastes so much better and it only takes less than 30 minutes to make.  For vegetarian/vegan, please use Kombu Dashi.

Udon noodles: You can use any kind of udon, but I like frozen sanuki udon from Asian/Japanese supermarkets. If you use frozen udon, you don't have to defrost prior to cooking.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/kitsune-udon/