New Year's Nabeyaki Udon - Japanese Hot Pot Noodle Recipe For New Year's Day

After posting my family's New Year's Day eats, someone asked me to post the recipe. After living in Japan (and to support our daughter's Asian heritage), we fell in love with the New Year's tradition of eating noodles for long life. As a nod to their Chinese heritage, we also eat dumplings for prosperity.

Traditionally, the Japanese New Year's noodle dish is Toshikoshi Soba with Ozoni Mochi Soup, but other Asian cultures have their own noodles, so I take creative liberties with ours. I've done different kinds of noodles and dumplings over the years. If you believe in bad luck, just don't make the mistake I once did of breaking my noodles before cooking! Long life = long noodles! LOL

I think this Japanese recipe for Nabeyaki Udon (udon hot pot) appeals to our family for New Year's Day because we spent the Christmas holiday eating rich foods and too many desserts. Nabe — which is the name for the ceramic pot it's cooked in — is healthy, and there are a lot of varieties. The best part is you can use what you have on hand for meat and vegetables. Feel free to adlib with this recipe. There are many nabe recipes easily searchable on the internet.

Nabe is also a family favorite because we love cooking together. There's minor prep, and everyone shares in adding ingredients as it cooks. (Sukiyaki is similar, which we made for Christmas Eve).

Family-style meal:

We use an electric cooker in the middle of the table, which is fairly common in Japan. Before we got the electric cooker, we had a tiny gas stove with a butane canister (like a camping stove) and placed our ceramic nabe pot on top (this is also typical in Japan and other Asian countries). Everyone gets to add the ingredients and pull out what they want to eat, which makes it fun. It's an early cooking lesson for children!

For those who don't have this set up, this will be like making soup. Because of the size of the ingredients and pre-cooked noodles, it cooks fast!

I'm not including a dumpling recipe because we used store-bought Japanese gyoza this year — cooked in the same pan before making the nabe. Over the years, we have handmade our own, which is fun, especially when my daughters' friends join in.

Nabeyaki Udon (Japanese hot pot noodle recipe)

(about 4 servings)

• 1 large pack of enoki mushrooms (about 7 oz). Other mushrooms can be used, but note that cap mushrooms take longer to cook

• 1 hefty leek or 3-4 green onions

• 1/2 Napa cabbage

• 1 package firm tofu

• 8 oz pork thinly cut (we buy a shabu-shabu cut from an Asian grocer, sliced almost paper thin)

• 1/2 tsp of MSG or 2 tsp. dashi powder (I found an umami mushroom spice blend at Trader Joe's that works, too. Use about 1/2-1 tsp) — this isn't a requirement, but gives a greater depth of umami flavor.

• 1/2 cup soy sauce

• 1/4 cup mirin

• 1 TB sugar

• 5 cups water

• Precooked or frozen udon (2-5 packs) (you can use fettuccine or another thick flour noodle)

• Optional: egg

• Optional: Nanami Togarashi (Japanese ground chili pepper) or white pepper

  
  

Prep vegetables:

Drain tofu, wrap in a paper towel, leave in a colander to further drain, then cut into 1-inch blocks.

Cut off enoki ends, then gently break or cut into small clumps.

Rinse, then cut root off leek/geen onions. Diagonally slice leek into 1.5-inch lengths (2-inch for green onion).

Rinse, remove core, then diagonally slice cabbage into 3-4-inch pieces.

Family-style cooking:

Place vegetables and tofu on a platter. Place meat on a separate platter. Don't forget the pre-cooked or frozen udon.

Make sure there are plenty of tongs or chopsticks so everyone can add and pull out the veg and meat, along with a ladle for the soup. Everyone has their own bowl. We eat a little at a time, so there's a constant flow of adding ingredients, cooking, and taking out as you're eating.

Make soup:

Combine water with umami flavor, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a nabe (or large soup pot on your stove). Bring to a boil.

Soup-style cooking:

First, add the leek and white of the cabbage (if using green onion, separate the white and green and add the white first). When they soften, add the green cabbage, enoki, and tofu. Cook until tofu is heated through and vegetables are soft enough for your liking. The cabbage and enoki will cook quickly. Add the frozen or precooked udon.

If using shabu-shabu pork, add it after the noodles because it's so thin, it will cook very quickly. When it turns from pink to brown, it's ready. If you use a thicker cut of pork, add it in the first step with the leek and cabbage to be certain it fully cooks.

Family-style cooking:

Bring the broth to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. We toss in some vegetables and tofu and let them simmer (round one). They will cook fairly quickly. When they are soft enough to eat, we ladle a little broth into our bowls, then pull out the ingredients into our bowls as we eat. Beware of tofu left too long in the broth — it gets super hot and will burn your mouth!

For the second round, we begin dipping and swirling the pork into the broth shabu-shabu-style. It cooks very quickly and is quite fun. If you dump all the pork in at once, it overcooks. It changes from pink to brown rapidly, so it's very easy to tell when it's done.

Dipping the pork in the broth shabu shabu-style

We eat as we cook and repeat until everyone is almost full from the veg and tofu and everything's gone. Now we add the noodles!

Noodles:

Our family likes the Japanese frozen udon package that comes with five individual packs of udon inside. For this type of meal, it's very convenient. Only you can decide how much udon you will eat, but my advice is to start with one or two packs, let everyone take some after it's cooked, before adding the next pack. Remember to raise the temperature back to a boil after adding the udon.

When cooking the noodles — family or soup-style — pull them apart as they defrost so they don't stick together. As soon as the noodles are heated through, they are ready to eat!

We like to add beaten egg to our individual bowls for sweetness, but that's optional. We also like togorashi (ground red pepper) for a little kick.

Caveat: I'm not a professional cook or nutritionist. This recipe is based on my family's personal tastes. I don't work for H-Mart, but I shop there, so I included links to some ingredients for your reference. Please substitute as you see fit!