Seafood Udon Soup Noodles

A simply scrumpious bowl of seafood noodles to slurp and gobble down! What could be better than a few select treasures from the sea afloat a comforting bed of thick and chewy noodles all tucked into a hot savory soup? Hummm...not much that I can think of!

Noodles for dinner is always lots of fun cuz it's easy to put together a pretty well rounded and spectacular looking bowl of noodles fast. Minimal effort for maximum yummiliciousness, amirite? Plus noodles are so scrummy to gobble down! Try our easy Seafood Udon Soup Noodles and see if it doesn't make you happy!

Actually this bowl of noodles was inspired by our decision to make homemade japanese udon noodles, which, surprisingly, were pretty darn easy and fun to make. I love udon noodles: a bit chewy, thick and just really comforting. And also great at absorbing the flavors they cook with.

You don't have to make your own noodles, of course, udon noodles are plenty available nowadays. If you do buy, I would recommend to buy the frozen udon as versus the non frozen kind, they seem to have better texture and taste a wee bit nicer.

Note that the noodles must be cooked separately from the soup. This way the starch from the noodles won't affect the soup, i.e. make the soup too thick.

So that's it for the noodles, now let's talk about this seafood noodle bowl's toppings! The first seafood ingredient for our noodles is fresh clams. It's so amazing to use clams for many dishes, so plump and delish and when they cook they release their sea sweet juice straight into the dish. Like our white clam pizza, omgosh so good...

Buy clams from the wet market if possible, they will be fresh from the sea! Any kind of small clam will do the trick. You can also sometimes buy fresh clams at the supermarkets in HK.

Know that clams live around and breath in a lot of sand so the danger with eating clams is that instead of plump sweet clam meat you will maybe get a side of sand as well! However it's easy to side step this, just make sure to soak your clams in a salt water bath for a half hour so that all the sand gets expelled from the clams.

Oh, the tiger prawns! Our second seafood topping for our udon noodles. So impressive in any dish. Tis many prawns that are flash frozen these days and the very fair price for these is just the ticket. In other words look for goodly priced flash frozen tiger prawns. Wonderful stuff.

Let prawns defrost overnight in the fridge. Then cut off antennae and rinse to prepare for cooking. We cook our prawns and shrimps with the heads on, that adds so much flavor to the soup!

To round out our bowl of noodles we bed our treasures from the sea atop some veggies. The first veggie is napa cabbage. Napa cabbage 大白菜 is a favorite Chinese vegetable, cooking up quite quickly to become soft and creamy with a slightly sweet and most pleasant flavor.

When buying napa cabbage look for firm and heavy heads. Also look for the cabbages that have taken on a more yellow color as opposed to green, as in the photo above, these will be sweeter. Napa cabbages are rather large so note that you will only be using a portion of the cabbage head for the noodles.

Our other veggie was mushroom. Wait, is mushroom a veggie? Anyways, we love mushrooms of all sorts but I think that for this bowl of noodles it fits in better to use asian mushroom like enoki, shitake, shimeji, oyster mushroom, etc. We used shimeji mushrooms as shown in the photo above. Just cut off any stem tips that show dirt, then peel the individual shrooms apart and they are ready to cook.

Mushrooms of all kinds are plentiful at the asian supermarket and at the wet markets in HK. That makes me very happy :) We 🤎 shrooms!!

Okay, so now we have all the ingredients gathered, seafood and veggies. How to cook it all? Easy!

Add water and stock to a pot. Once the stock is boiling add the veggies and mushrooms first and let simmer until the veggie is mostly cooked. The cabbage will release its sweetness into the soup. Then lay the shrimp on top of the veggies in one layer and the clams on top of it all. This way the shrimp are immersed in the simmering soup to cook while the clams, being on top, will simply be steam cooked, both releasing all their sea sweet juices into the soup. Cover pot with a lid and...

...Ta-da!...the clams have opened up and everything is cooked! Great little timing trick, eh? Look at those clams, so plump and delicious. Your soup and noodle toppings are ready to add to the noodle bowls.

To finish plating your noodle bowls add a bit of the cabbage on top of the cooked noodles already in each bowl. Arrange the prawns, clams and mushrooms in a pretty pattern on top of cabbage. Ladle soup into each bowl. A final golden touch of a halved soft boiled egg makes for the perfect finish to the bowl.

Your Seafood Udon Soup Noodles are ready! Easy peasy, amirite? It's time to slurp and gobble, dear readers. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Seafood Udon Soup Noodles

(4 servings) Clam soak: 30 mins Prep: 5 mins Cook: 15 mins

Ingredients:

4 udon noodle packs, or homemade udon noodles as per recipe here
340g small fresh clams, 12oz
8 tiger prawns (defrosted over night in fridge)
1/2 head of small napa cabbage, approx. 14oz or 400g
1 cup shimeji mushrooms
3 cups stock, chicken or fish
3 cups water
2 soft boiled eggs, peeled and halved (optional)

Directions:

Make udon noodles: If making homemade udon noodles, please do so first. Note that it will take around 3 hours total, 2 1/2 of that is resting time for the noodles. If using store bought udon noodles proceed to preparing the noodle toppings first.

Prep the clams: Add a tbsp of salt to enough water to submerge the clams. Stir til salt is melted, then add the clams. Let sit for 30 mins. Sand will be expelled from the clams. Remove the clams from water without disturbing the sand at the bottom. Rinse.

Prep the prawns: Rinse the defrosted prawns under running water. Cut off the antennae.

Prep the veggies: Cut the whole napa cabbage in half crosswise. Reserve the half with the stem for some other use. Slice the leafy end of the cabbage into 1 by 1 1/2 inch pieces. Rinse and drain.

For the mushroom, slice off any ends that show dirt. Then use fingers to peel the mushrooms apart in clumps of 2-3 shrooms per clump.

Cook the noodles: Prepare a large pot with enough water to cover the udon by an inch. Place on high heat. For homemade udon, when the water boils, add noodles to water and cook for 10-12 mins, gently separating the noodles strands if needed. Test by biting a noodle to check the noodle is translucent all the way through. If cooking from packaged udon just follow the instructions on the packet.

Once noodles are cooked immediately remove from water and rinse under cool running water to remove starch. Add cooked noodles in equal portions to each noodle bowl. Discard cooking water.

Cook the soup: While the noodles are cooking add stock and 3 cups fresh water to another large pot over a high heat. When the stock boils turn the heat to medium. Add the napa cabbage into the soup in an even layer. Add mushroom in an even layer. Put lid on pot and let cook for about 5 mins or until the napa cabbage is tender.

Add the prawns in a layer on top of the veggies. Finally add the clams, again in a layer atop the shrimps. Close pot lid and let boil for 5 mins or until the clams open up completely. Remove from heat.

Plate the noodle bowl: Add equal portions of napa cabbage on top of the noodles in each bowl. Add shrimp, mushrooms and clams next, in a nice pattern. Use ladle to scoop soup into each bowl. Top off with half a soft boiled egg if you like. Enjoy the noodle-iciousness!

Nom Nom Noodles at The Hong Kong Cookery: