Udon from Michi

I was talking to my coworker Michi last week about noodle. She told me she receives Udon from her mom in Japan occasionally. She said the udon was her home town's specialty, and then she offered to give me some to try. Michi said the udon is packaged in way such that it is vacuumed and dry, but not completely dry. I was confused until I saw and felt the noodle myself. I was beyond happy and thankful because I LOVE noodles, and I really want to try this udon that she described.

The noodle came with two different kind of sauce packages--one is a soup base and another is a dipping sauce.

I was excited when I decided to make this for my dinner one night. Upon opening the package, I found that the noodle was dry, floury and soft. For some reasons, even though it's semi-dry, it looks very fresh. The flour dusting is still on it!

According to Michi, the noodle should take at least 7 minutes to cook, and it should be super soft when it is done. After that, I should run it under cold water. I could tell the noodle contained a lot of salt and was super starchy. The cooking water was milky white and upon sampling the texture when it was in the pot, it tasted very, very salty. I ran the noodle under the cold water for long time, hoping the water would wash off my salt and starch.

I was surprised that the finished product looks exactly like this other instant but wet packaged udon package I bought from Asian market. Texture-wise though, the one Michi gave me was chew-ier but not as chewy as the frozen kind.

After I made the noodle, I boiled some water and added the soup base to it. Then I also boiled some napa cabbage, immitation crab, quail egg, ham, corn and peas to form my nutritionally balance dinner.

Itadakimasu! Hmmm! Delicious!