This completely comes from the instagram account of Hollow Legs, so go and check it out there!
It was a huge, comforting, umami hit which only took 20 min to prepare so perfect as a weekday evening supper! Yum!
Ingredients – for two people
- Two udon blocks (I got them from a Korean grocery shop close to us, but you might find them in a big-gish supermarket)
- Greens (any type you like or have handy, like spinach, pak choi, cabbage, broccoli, …)
- 2 cloves garlic or as much as you’d like (we used 4 đ)
- about 2 cm of ginger
- 1-2 spring onions
- 3 tbsp kimchi
- 1 tbsp gochujang
- light soy
- “Slappy” cheese, or whichever melty cheese you have.
- A knob of butter.
Method
- In a pot or deep bowl, add the udon blocks with hot water and let them detangle and become less blocky while you prepare the rest of things.
- Peel and chop thinly the ginger and garlic, slice the spring onions very thinly separating the green from the white parts. Keep the green aside, the rest can all go to a ginger, garlic and onions pile or small pot for later.
- Place about 3 tbsp of kimchi in another bowl, chop it roughly with kitchen scissors.
- Another pot: measure the tbsp of gochujang and a splash of light soy.
- If your cheese is in a block, cut thin slices of it. If it’s already shredded, then leave it out of the fridge. If it’s slappy, I have no idea. Keep it out the fridge, just in case!
- Warm up a big pan (or wok if you have it!), add some neutral oil, make it very hot. Then:
- Stir fry the garlic, ginger, whites of the spring onions until they smell nice and look like they’re starting to be fried.
- Cook your greens by stirring them into this – I used spinach so it was very easy: wash them, drain them, add to the pan and toss them around until they soften. If you use harder vegetables you might want to add a splash of water and put a lid on so they soften, or cook them ahead of time and just stir fry them now.
- Add the kimchi and stir around until mixed in.
- Add the gochuja and light soy, add a dash of water to dissolve, stir.
- Turn the heat off in the big pan.
- Add the knob of butter to the pan (the original recipe calls for cream but I didn’t have it and didn’t want to buy it just for this.
- Drain the udon, add to the pan and stir. You can also add a couple of thin bits of cheese at this stage to melt it in.
- To dish up:
- place the udon noodles in bowls
- add the green slices of spring onions
- place the slices of cheese nicely on top
- And serve with chopsticks (if adventurous) or a fork (not so adventurous), but most importantly, with a napkin or piece of paper, because you’re going to get your chin covered in drippy kimchi đ
To make this vegan
- Replace the cheese with vegan cheese (actually some vegan cheeses I’ve tried are incredibly melty and would work really well)
- Replace the butter with a dash of oil, and/or something like a whisked up and fluffied cashew nuts and water paste
- Make sure your kimchi IS vegan, either by making it yourself or reading the label carefully, as we describe in this post about our home-made kimchi.
To make this gluten free
- Replace the udon noodles with something made without wheat
- Replace the soy sauce with tamari