Tsuyu (aka
kakejiru) is the standard
broth for
Japanese soba and
udon noodles.
(To be quite precise,
tsuyu means any sort of broth at all,
but in the absence of qualifiers it is assumed to
refer to
soy-based noodle broth.)
You can buy commercially prepared
tsuyu in
any Japanese supermarket, but it's very easy to
prepare your own -- like this:
Ingredients
- 8 1/3 cups dashi (but see note below)
- 6 Tbsp soy sauce (preferably a Japanese brand, Chinese soy tastes different)
- 2 Tbsp mirin
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp salt (or less)
Instructions
- Bring dashi to a boil.
- Add the other ingredients.
- Bring back boil and remove from heat.
Not too tough, now was it? The above is a
Kansai-style
recipe for high-quality noodles so the broth is quite
thin, barbarians with
Kanto-style tastes (like me)
might go as far as to double everything except the dashi.
Also bear in mind that purists think
soba broth
should be stronger than
udon broth.
The above should be enough for about 4 bowls of
noodles. The broth can be refrigerated and will keep
up to three days. If preparing in advance, you may wish to just use 8 cups' worth of dashi powder and make
concentrated tsuyu; just add in the water when reheating.
To serve as kake soba or kake udon,
cook the noodles, pour hot tsuyu on top and add a
dash of finely chopped green onion. Flavor with
shichimi-togarashi to taste.