Ice Bowl Chilled Udon with Onsen Tamago (Hot Spring Egg) 冰鎮烏冬配温泉蛋

Aloha!  If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you might have noticed that my family was in Hawaii this summer.  It was one of our best summer vacation, ever!  Now that we’re back to reality, all of us are suffering from a severe case of VWS, a.k.a, Vacation Withdrawal Syndrome!  Yes, I just made that term up.  You don’t need to Google it!    

While in Hawaii, we visited two islands: Oahu and the Big Island.  I’ll share with you, in other posts in the near future, the details on the places we visited, things we did, and restaurants that we tried and loved!

 

One of the restaurants that we tried was Marukame Udon in Waikiki.  The rating of this place from a popular restaurant review sites was really high.  Of course, we wouldn’t miss the chance to check this place out.  It was near our hotel and we actually passed by this restaurant on a few different occasions.  During the peak lunch and dinner hours, the line outside of the restaurant was super long!  Yes, my kids love udon, but I doubted if they would really love udon that much to patiently stand and wait for more than an hour for a bowl of udon!  So, we planned our visit in the late morning before the lunch rush hour started.  The good news was that we only had to wait about 15 minutes before placing our order (This restaurant offers a semi self-serving type ordering approach that is very similar to cafeteria style).   

To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed by their udon.  My hubby and I both ordered hot udon with beef along with some other side dishes.  The flavor of our beef udon was great, but the udon itself was a bit too soft to our liking.  On the other hand, both of our kids ordered cold udon and that was totally a different story!  The udon was cooked perfectly to el dente, perfectly chilled, super bouncy, and had the wonderful slightly chewy texture that I enjoy in my udon!  Guess the grown up ordered the “wrong” thing!  I have to say though, they have some awesome and delicious side dishes to choose from and the Onsen Tamago (Hot Spring Egg) was one of the item that I think is a must try!    

As a result of this restaurant visit, I was inspired to recreate this awesome cold udon recipe!  Let me introduce to you, Ice Bowl Chilled Udon with Onsen Tamago (Hot Spring Egg) 冰鎮烏冬配温泉蛋!  It’s perfect for the hot summer days!  Yes, summer vacation might be over, but the temperature sure is not coming down any time soon!  If you still long for a refreshing recipe that can cool you down instantly, you’ve got to try this one out.  

If you haven’t watch the video tutorial at the top of this post yet, please make sure you don’t miss it.  In the video, I’ll show you step-by-step on how to put this cold udon dish together, including the homemade dipping sauce, the ice bowl that the udon is served in, as well as this super decadent hot spring egg!  The egg is truly the star of this dish and adds so much flavors and decadent aromas to the udon!  Follow my video tutorial closely and you’ll get the perfect hot spring eggs.  The egg white is cooked to perfection, yet the yolk is still runny.  It’s really amazing how you can crack the cooked egg right from its shell onto the serving bowl!  The ice bowl will keep your udon cold while you eat.  Not to mention, it’s a super fun presentation as well.     

If you love spicy food, I highly recommend that you add a small amount of wasabi and mix it into the udon.  It’ll add a nice kick to this dish and balance the flavor perfectly.  I know I’ll be making and enjoying this dish over and over again!  It’ll certainly reminds me of the wonderful summer vacation that we had in Hawaii!  Aloha!

 

Tools and ingredients used:

Instant Dashi Powder (Click here for more information)
Mirin (Click here for more information)

Sesame Oil (Click here for more information)
Light Soy Sauce (Click here for more information)
Wasabi (Click here for more information)
Assorted Floral Chopsticks (Click here to see similar product)
Crane Chopsticks Rest (Click here to see product information)
Bamboo Placemats (Click here for more information) 

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel here.  That way, you won’t miss out on any video and you’ll be the first to know when I have a new tutorial published.

Ice Bowl Chilled Udon with Onsen Tamago (Hot Spring Egg)
冰鎮烏冬配温泉蛋
Servings: 2

Ingredients for the Udon:
2 (8.8 Ounce / 250 grams) udon
2 organic large brown eggs

Ingredients for dipping sauce:
1/2 teaspoon instant dashi
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sake
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 green onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon wasabi, optional, more if you like spicy food

To prepare the ice bowl:
Use 2 freezer safe mixing bowls, fill both with water until ½-icnh below the rim. Freeze for 4 hours until the outer layer is frozen and the middle is still in liquid form. Remove from freezer, gently break the ice on the surface with a butter knife and empty out the water in the bowl. Return the ice bowls back to the freezer until ready to serve.

To prepare the dipping sauce:
In a small pot, heat the sake until it comes to a boil to cook off some alcohol. Remove from heat and whisk in instant dashi and water (or you can use homemade dashi broth), soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, green onion, and wasabi (if using). Let dipping sauce slightly cool down. Refrigerate until ready to use.


To Prepare the Onsen Tamago:In a medium pot, bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Remove from heat and let the water rest for 1 minutes. Gently put the eggs into the hot water without touching each other. Let the eggs “cook” for 14 minutes, uncovered in the pot. When time is up, transfer the eggs to a bowl of iced water until completely cool.

To prepare the udon:
In a medium pot, bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Cook the udon according to the package’s instructions. Drain and rinse with iced water.

Place udon in prepared ice bowl, crack an Onsen Tamago on top. Then, sprinkle some green onion on top, pour the chilled dipping sauce. Stir in wasabi, is using. Have fun and enjoy!

Amy’s note: I highly recommend that you add the wasabi to the dipping sauce. However, my kids are not into spicy food, just yet. So I usually omit the wasabi in their sauce.