A Quick Fix - Asian Udon Noodles

Instead of celebrating Mardi Gras in a skimpy costume to the beat of steel drums in Trinidad, I am stuck in freezing cold New York stuffing two gigantic suitcases, about to take off for Finland. Once I am there and the jet lag is slept off, I shall as usual stock up on liver casserole, HK liver sausage and ring sausage, meat pies and spinach pancakes. On days like this, though, food is just an afterthought, and I often stop by the wonderful Japanese-Korean convenience store in my neighbourhood, m2m, to pick up a tray of sushi and a few contrasting kinds of kimchi, the Korean cure for scurvy. Boringly enough, I always choose the standard-issue white radish pickled in hot red pepper sauce, although they carry a dozen more exotic varieties as well, such as lotus root, squid or dried shrimp. Best of all, the store is cheap, cheap, cheap, at least by Manhattan standards.

I had never really noticed before that they have a tiny fresh produce section tucked away in the dark back corner. Among the vegetables lay alluringly thick fresh jumbo udon noodles, the fat Japanese wheat noodles, vacuum-packed with a sachet of seasoning and so essentially soup in a box. (This site has more udon ideas, in English that is entirely its own. If you are stuck with the more common instant ramen, check out this quirky Seattle-based website.) With a bone-chilling breeze blowing down the Hudson, a bowl of hearty soup sounded a lot more appealing than cold pieces of nigiri and maki.

At home I put water on to boil and went through the fridge, in a futile effort to get rid of everything that will spoil while I am gone. Out came mushrooms, spring onions, baby bok choy, a carrot and a heap of small red Thai chillies, two of which ended up in the pot. Normally I am not a huge fan of the MSG-laden flavour sachets that come with instant noodles, but the one that came with the jumbo noodles tasted just fine. According to the packet it contained soy sauce, fish stock, sugar, salt, powdered kelp and the MSG, which is more or less what the Japanese make their broth from in any case. I read somewhere that MSG itself was first extracted from kelp, by a Japanese chemist not quite a hundred years ago. Best of all, I was slurping piping hot soup within ten minutes of walking in at the door.

The cooking takes four minutes. The noodles boil in half a litre of water for two, and meanwhile I slice the mushrooms, the chillies and a spring onion and gently pull the bok choy apart. Then the contents of the sachet and everything fresh go in, and two minutes later the soup is ready.

I accompanied the soup with white radish kimchi and warm sake, and for dessert I had hot Chinese custard buns, steamed in the bamboo steamer I hauled home from the Bowery three weeks ago. Yum!