The approach of winter is often accompanied by a feeling of loss. Light, warmth, and colour start to diminish. A collective retreat indoors begins. You’d be forgiven for feeling that the world has lost some vitality, some ballast of its life. However, these shifts and changes give rise to opportunities that the highs of summer could never have accommodated, and in this sense, there is much to be gained.

Food in the summer seems to facilitate, rather than generate, emotions and feelings. For instance, the summer barbecue is rarely dependent on the quality of produce on the grill, nor the wisdom of the ten blokes debating the ideal turns-per-minute for each burger. The salad, another summer staple, seems to be an ‘all you can manage’ last resort, and not transformative in the way good food can be. In the winter, this is turned on its head. The shortening days can no longer be counted on to deliver the physical and emotional warmth we crave. For me, in this weather, food is the antidote, and there is surely no food more iconic or more apt for providing warmth than a rich, sturdy bowl of soup. So, here is a ramen-inspired, salty and umami rich noodle soup to get you through the winter months.

“In this weather, food is the antidote”

Ingredients:

Tare

• Smooth peanut butter – 3tbsp

• Miso paste – 2tbsp

• Soy sauce (light or all purpose) – 3tbsp

• Rice vinegar – 0.5tbsp (sub with apple cider or white wine vinegar)

• Chilli oil/chili crisp – 0.5-1.5 tbsp (depending on spice tolerance)

Soup base

• Mushroom – 300-500g, thinly sliced (shiitake, oyster, enoki, or even chestnut/button will work great)

• Garlic – 5/6 cloves, minced

• Ginger – thumb sized piece, minced

• Water or chicken/veg stock – ~1-1.5L

• Noodles – 400g pack

Toppings:

• Noodles – 400g pack

• Boiled egg – 1 per person, sliced in half.

• Pak choi – separated into leaves

• Spring onion – 3 or 4, sliced

• Chili oil/chili crisp – drizzled

Method:

Tare

1. Mix all of the tare ingredients together in a bowl. It should be similar to the texture of wet sand.

Soup base

• Heat 1tbsp of vegetable oil in a high sided saucepan or wok (needs to fit 1–2L of water) over medium-high heat, add the chopped mushrooms on a medium heat for 10 mins, or until their water has reduced. This is when they have significantly reduced in volume, become a deep brown, and the boiling sound has become more of a sizzling sound.

• Add garlic and ginger and fry for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

• Add the chicken broth, stir and set to the side, or place on a low heat (you’ll need to make sure it’s boiling before serving, though).

“there is surely no food more iconic or more apt for providing warmth than a rich, sturdy bowl of soup”

Toppings – one pan!

• While the mushrooms are frying, fill a saucepan with boiling water (enough to cover as many noodles as you have), and bring to a gentle simmer.

• Gently lower eggs in (one per person) and remove after six minutes. Put these in a bowl of cold (or iced if you can be bothered) water and set aside. Peel off the shells when you have a spare moment.

• To the same water, add noodles and increase the heat to a more vigorous boil.

• One minute before the noodles have finished cooking (check packet instructions for this), add the pak choi.

• After 1 minute, remove noodles and pak choi and quickly rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Set aside until time to serve.

Assembly

• Place 1tbsp of tare into the base of a bowl.

• Add soup base, making sure it is boiling when you add it. Stir to dissolve.

• Taste and consider the salt level. If it is too salty, adjust by adding more broth/water. If it is not salty enough, add and dissolve more tare.

• Once the broth is to your taste, add the noodles, and finish with the toppings (and reserved mushrooms).

Recipe notes and modifications

• Pans – if you are worried about the mushrooms, garlic and ginger sticking to a non-stick saucepan, you can fry them in a normal frying pan, then transfer to a saucepan and add the liquid.

• Cost-cutting – if you don’t have any of this stuff (miso, chili oil etc) lying around, this can be quite an expensive outlay. If you cook often, though, they are worth investing in, as they last all year and are so versatile. If you must, however: the dish would still stand up well without the chili oil or the vinegar.

• Tare – this is a Japanese technique that is incredibly versatile and transferable, with two main benefits as I understand. Firstly, ingredients like peanut butter and miso don’t respond well to boiling, so it ensures you make the most of these. Secondly, the dynamic flavour adjustment is a brilliant way of matching the seasoning of the broth to your tastes exactly.

• Adding meat – I often add chicken breast to this. Boil in the soup base for ~15 minutes, transfer to a bowl, pull apart with two forks until shredded, and add back to the soup.

• Toppings – you can top this with basically anything! Mine are just suggestions that require minimum washing up and complement the intensity of the broth well. Any spare veg like spinach, green beans, and sweetcorn would be great as well.