Stir-Fried Udon

Lately I’ve been on a cooking kick, and my efficiency’s been creeping up, so I’ve started trying everything — the easy stuff and the not-so-easy stuff.

This time it was udon. Flavor turned out fine in the end. The presentation… not so much.

I used the pre-made udon from the supermarket. Obviously I can’t make the noodles myself — you can’t reinvent the wheel every day when you cook.

The method for stir-fried udon is pretty simple. Boil water first, blanch the udon for 1–2 minutes, fish it out and let it drain.

Then get 1–2 eggs, beat them, and chop up whatever else you’re using. I went with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, chili pepper, lettuce, and the mandatory onion — sliced thin is best.

Oil in the pan. Fry the beaten egg first, breaking it up as it cooks, then take it out.

Add a little more oil and stir-fry the sliced veg. Cherry tomatoes can sit this one out. After a short bit, dump the egg back in along with the drained udon and stir-fry everything together.

This is when you season. Sauce is recommended — XO sauce would be ideal, but I didn’t have any, so it was soy sauce + salt for me.

Near the end, taste it and add salt if it’s bland. All in all, soy sauce plus salt really doesn’t hold a candle to just using sauce…

Add the cherry tomatoes right before you’re done — put them in early and they get absolutely wrecked. Once it’s in the bowl you can top with beef slices or sardines or whatever; I added some cod, which I’ve been really into lately.

Out of the pan, my reaction was… yeah, it looks bad. Way too dark, way too oily. All that soy sauce coloring’s fault!

But it tasted good, and the texture was great. As someone who cares about looks, I’ve got room to improve next time.

This cook was a bit of a scramble — I had two pans going, one for water and one for stir-frying. My multiprocessing needs work. The main takeaway: get some XO sauce ready, and go easier on the soy sauce next time. Or add the lettuce at the very end so it doesn’t all come out black.