About the Recipe
You may have come across red miso from time to time. Compared to the lighter coloured varieties, red miso has been fermented longer and has a saltier taste making it perfect for stwes and hotpots. If you have none to hand, don't worry, just use brown miso but increase the quantity (keep tasting as you add!) until your dish is flavoured to your taste. If you read the recipe below, you'll see an instruction to cut star marks in the mushrooms heads. This is decorative only so you don't really need to do it - if you are interested, take a look at the video tutorial to see how it's done.
Ingredients
2 portions of udon
2 chinese cabbage leaves
1 leek
4 shiitake mushrooms
6 sugar snaps
40g carrot
120g boneless chicken thigh or breast
2 seafood sticks
2 tsp japanese dashi granules
700ml water
0.5 tbsp sugar
2.5 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp red miso*
2 eggs
*you can also use white or brown miso but you will need to increase the amount to get the right level of saltiness in the hotpot
Preparation
cut the cabbage leaves into bite sized pieces
slice the leek diagonally
cut star marks onto the shiitake mushroom heads
peel & slice the carrot into thick matchsticks
halve the seafood sticks diagonally
cut the chicken into bite sized pieces
pour the water & dashi granules into a large saucepan
add the mirin, sugar, and miso and stir & bring to the boil
add the carrot, leek, chinese cabbage & chicken to the pot.
bring back to the boil and cook for 5 minutes
add the shiitake mushrooms & udon and cook for a further 3-4 minutes
break the eggs into the centre of the pan, add the sugar snaps & seafood sticks, then cook with a lid on for a couple more minutes
bring to your dining/kitchen table and ladle the hotpot into servings bowls, using cooking chopsticks to pick out the udon noodles