This is a typical post-hangover dish that I like to make for myself – hearty, easy to whip up, and spicy enough to wake me up from my alcohol-induced stupor. As with most fried rice/noodle dishes, it’s a great way to use up leftover food or random stuff you can find in your refrigerator. In this case, I used leftover sliced pork belly from my salad that I made a few days ago and it went beautifully with the noodles.
I like yaki udon, not only because of thick springy texture of the noodles but also because you can keep the shrink-wrapped squares of noodles for months and they never seem to go bad (have you ever seen expiry dates on udon packets?).
So here’s the lowdown:
The basic idea is to use up whatever you’ve got in the fridge, but essentially you’ll still need the noodles, eggs, garlic and onion, and seasoning ingredients. The recipe below just lists what I decided to put into the dish that day, but I find that red pepper is usually a must as well because it lends crunch and sweetness to the dish.
Tom yum yaki udon (makes for 2)
2 packets of udon
2 eggs
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 small red onion, sliced
Light soya sauce
Sesame oil
Tom yum paste
2 red peppers
5 white mushrooms, sliced
Leftover pork belly slices
1. Heat wok with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When smoking, toss in the garlic and onion. After about 30 seconds, add in the red pepper slices and mushrooms, fry for about 1 minute. Season with about 2 tablespoons of soya sauce. Cover and cook for another 2-3 minutes under medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, loosen the noodles quickly by dumping them in a bowl of hot water (or if you’re really lazy like me, just dump them straight into the wok and chop them up randomly). Place noodles into wok, and add another 2 tablespoons of soya sauce and a few squirts of sesame oil. Fry under high heat, with pork belly slices tossed in, for about 1 minute.
3. Using a teaspoon, add a big dollop of tom yum paste. Mix, and then crack eggs in. Stir-fry until egg bits are cooked.
4. Serve with a handful of torn spinach on top. If you want to zest things up a bit, squeeze some lime and add some chopped peanuts on top as well.
