Recipe: Boiled Kale with an Egg, Vaguely Japanese Style

[coraa]

I got kale in the produce box this week and went looking on the Internet for a way to cook it. I found this recipe for kale, egg and toast by Orangette, which looked quite good -- except that jmpava doesn't like soggy bread. I decided to use udon noodles instead of bread as the starch base, because I've had several Japanese dishes that have an egg on top, and this reminded me a bit of those. A bit more tweaking (some soy sauce, some bonito flakes, some sesame seeds), and I had a Japanese-inspired kale, noodle and egg dish.

(This could be made vegetarian if you find a replacement for the dashi base, which contain bonito flakes, which are fish. Perhaps dried seaweed would work in that capacity.)

Boiled Kale with an Egg, Vaguely Japanese-Style

• 1 medium onion (or 1/2 large, or 2 small)
  
• 3 tbsp veg oil
  
• pinch salt
  
• 1/2 lb kale
  
• 3 cloves garlic
  
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
  
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  
• 1/2 cup sake or white wine (optional)
  
• 2 1/2 cups water (or 3 cups, if you forgo the sake or white wine)
  
• 1/2 tsp granulated dashi base, or equivalent
  
• 1-2 tbsp soy sauce
  
• udon noodles, one of those little ribbon-wrapped 'servings'
  
• 2 eggs

Mince the onion.

In the bottom of a large-ish saucepan, heat the oil. Add the onion, sprinkle with just a pinch of salt, and let it cook over medium to medium-low heat until it has turned translucent but has not yet started to brown. (A little golden color is fine.)

While the onion cooks, clean and slice the kale thusly: first, pick all the leafy bits of the kale free from the thick middle stem. This will look like an enormous amount of kale, but like most greens, it cooks down a lot. Then wad up a bunch of kale and slice it into thin 'ribbons.' (Technically, you're supposed to place one leaf atop another until you have a stack of 4 or 5, roll them up, and silce the roll, but the kale I had was too curly and too irregularly sized/shaped for that to work, so I just wadded and sliced.) Put the kale in a bowl of water and let it sit; any sand or dirt will sink to the bottom. Pull the kale out, pour off the water, and rinse once more the same way, then set aside.

Sliver the garlic. Add the garlic, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes to the onion and let cook a few more minutes. Add the kale and cook until bright green and wilted. If you're using sake or white wine, add it at this point and let cook on its own for a few minutes, to boil off some of the alcohol taste. Then add the rest of the water and reduce heat to a simmer. Add the bonito flakes and soy sauce and let cook about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, the kale should be cooked soft and silky. Remove it and the onion using a slotted spoon, add enough water to the remaining broth that you are once again to about 3 cups of liquid, and put the udon in the broth. Simmer 10 minutes, or according to package directions.

Meanwhile, fry the eggs. Ideally, the white should be set but the yolk runny. Since the egg will 'cook' a little more in the heat of the noodles, err on the side of more runny; you don't want a set yolk for this, even if you don't usually like runny egg yolk.

When the udon is done, ladle udon and broth into bowls. Top with kale, and then top that with egg.

The eaters should break the egg up thoroughly into the soup, so that there are bits of egg white in amidst the noodles, and the yolk melds into the broth and makes it richer and a little thicker.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that looks super tasty!