Udon with eggs, tofu and vegetables

1. Peel and cut the carrot and daikon in small pics. I cut them into thin sticks but they can be in any shapes. Cut off the hard tips of the shimeji mushroom (I used the ones whose tips have been cut)

2. To make sauce, dissolve the 2 sticks of dashi powder with 800ml water in a pot and bring it to boil. Add the carrot, daikon, shimeji mushrooms and chicken. Cook until the ingredients are throughly cooked. (for about 10-15min.) Remove scum using a spoon.

3. In a small bowl, mash the tofu roughly using a fork or a spoon. Add the tofu to the sauce. Cook a few min. Add the soy sauce, mirin, and sake. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings.

4. Beat the egg in a bowl. Gently add into the sauce while it's hot. The tip is to use chopsticks and gently let the eggs slide down the chopsticks into the soup. Move the chopsticks in circle so that the eggs will be scattered in the soup evenly. (like you are making egg and flour soup.) Add the mizuna leaf.

5. To make the sauce thicker, dissolve 2 tbsp potato starch in 4 tbsp of water and add into the sauce. (this part is optional)

6. Cook the udon in boiling water according to the package instruction. Drain and transfer the udon to a bowl. Pour the sauce over the udon. Garnish with the green onion.

7. (To cheat) Use pre-mixed mentsuyu sauce. This can be purchase at a Japanese local grocery market. Dilute the sauce in accordance with the label instruction. For this particular brand, I diluted the sauce by 1:5 ratio. (sauce:water). Boil the sauce and the water and add the vegetable, chicken, tofu and eggs. Add mizuna leaf and green onions (optional).

8. (About Udon) If you use softer udon noodles (with 1-2 cook time) you can also cook the noodles in the sauce.