Udon for breakfast

I often wish that we were more of breakfast people but we’re not. I suppose our taste buds are barely functional early in the morning and it takes a few hours to get them to work. The kids rarely eat breakfast so their first meal for the day is their school recess which, fortunately, is quite early at around 9.00 a.m. So I make it a point to pack a rather heavy snack for them — no store-bought cookies, definitely — because, after all, it’s supposed to serve as both breakfast and mid-morning snack. Me, I rarely eat breakfast. I usually take two cups of coffee in the morning then eat somewhere between 9 and 10 which qualifies my first meal as brunch. One day last week when the kids’ packed school lunch consisted of stir-fried pork and vegetables, I decided that my brunch would be udon. I boiled some udon, tossed them with what was left of the stir fried dish and the result is what you see in the photo.

Of course, almost any oriental noodles will do — udon is not a necessity. But I had this pack of tempura udon and I’d been dying to try cooking yaki-udon so I figured I might as well experiment with the noodles first before plunging into the next project. The result was heartening — the noodles didn’t turn soggy and neither did they stick together after they were tossed with the stir-fry. Oriental noodles cook much faster than Italian pasta so they need to be watched closely while boiling. As an additional precaution, I plunged the cooked udon in ice water after draining. Then, I drained them once more before tossing them with the stir fried pork and vegetables.

After the successful experiment, next time I go to the supermarket, I will buy a pack of bonito flakes and cook my first yaki-udon.

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