Recipe For Homemade Flavouring For Noodles

Question

Me again! My young girls love those packets of Asian dry noodles. I'm totally against them as, from what I've read, they have zero nutritional content. What concerns me more, however, are those sachets that accompany them - toxic! We've compromised and they can have high quality soba/udon Japanese noodles, but I want to know if there is a recipe (dried ingredients only) that they can prepare in advance to take back to boarding-school with them. I don't mind them having them as a supplement only, but they need to be much healthier than that garbage from the supermarket! Thanks in advance - again!

Scottolotto · Answer

Thanks Lori, great idea. We have some Pandaroo brand Sushi Rice Seasoning here (Wasabi Furikake) that the girls like so I'll add that to the list. Got so many awesome ideas here from you all, it's bound to be a success! A big "thanks" to you all. The girls are very excited about this project - so nice to see!

Scottolotto · Answer

You spoil me! Wonderful. I'm not too great on the computer, I usually leave that up to the girls, although I am learning a lot thanks to you all at Food52. I hope I'm not being a nuisance (we have an absolute gem of a housekeeper, but she knows even less about cooking and computers than I do!)

Lori T. · Answer

You could also try locating furikake seasoning, or making your own.  That is usually used to top rice or noodles, but along with a vegetable broth cube it could bring along the umami you are looking for.  You can find versions that include bonito flakes, and sometimes even dried salmon bits, as well as the usual seaweed flakes and sesame seeds, and other seasonings.  You'll also want to look for dried mushrooms- shitake, which you could perhaps pulverize  for flavoring as well- or leave in dried slices to add in.

Nancy · Answer

Seitan (opening of Wikipedia article on it):Wheat gluten is a food made from gluten, the main protein of wheat. It is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch granules have been removed, leaving the sticky insoluble gluten as an elastic mass, which is then cooked before being eaten.[1] The name seitan (UK: /ˈseɪtæn/, US: /-tɑːn/;[2] Japanese: セイタン) is now widely used in vegetarian, vegan, wholefood and macrobiotic circles for wheat gluten dishes.[3] It is also known as miàn jīn (Chinese: 面筋), milgogi (Korean: 밀고기), wheat meat, gluten meat, vital wheat gluten or simply gluten.
Kosher soup powder. They are ok in terms of natural food elements. For example ingredients in Streit's chicken soup flavored powder: tapioca dextrose; salt; extra virgin olive oil; onion & garlic powders; ground turmeric, celery-seeds & white pepper

Scottolotto · Answer

Thanks for the update. Never thought of dried tofu, but that would be great (will have to look up what seitan is) and will definitely look into the kosher side of things. Cheers!

Nancy · Answer

Ok, got it. Two suggestions on the vegetarian angle.
Protein - dried tofu or seitan.
Powdered soup base - look for kosher brands. They often have powdered soup base in beef and chicken flavors without any meat products.
There are also good tasting vegetarian soup cubes and powders.

Scottolotto · Answer

Thanks once again for the thoughts Nancy.
Once you remove the ingredients that have names that can be substituted with a chemical formula, you're not left with much. The girls also want this to be vegetarian, so most boosters and stocks are out (our housekeeper also suggested Vegeta and vegetable stock cubes.)
The oldest girl is doing home economics this year so I suggested she put this to her teacher and they are now going to do this as a class project!
They girls have their "noodle kit" at school (sambal, tamari, chilli oil, etc.) but the noodles really need something added to give them a "depth" of flavour.
Will post a recipe when we have it. Thanks!

Scottolotto · Answer

Thanks Jesse, I'll check it out!

Jesse M. · Answer

Alex french guy cooking on YouTube might have a starting point for you. https://www.youtube.com...

Nancy · Answer

Some afterthoughts. More ingredients.Dried:*bonito flakes, chilies or chile flakes and/or seaweedLiquid:Mirin and/or sake

Nancy · Answer

Scottolotto - interesting question (which means, I don't know the answer). Looked around a bit and couldn't find a recipe for homemade version of dried flavorings.
But I think it would be pretty easy to MacGyver.
Look for a homemade udon noodles recipe and/or compare some of the real ingredients on the package label of the instant.
Then buy the dried versions of the makings. Most of the things that do or could go into the soup come in dried versions - garlic, ginger, mushroom, onion, soup broth flavoring, dried meat or fish. If you can't find some of the ingredients in your local stores, look to online merchants. It will be worth your while to buy some of the ingredients in bulk, both to pack for taking back to school and for home use.
The only things that will likely be unavailable dry could be bought in small bottles and stored at room temp several months at school - soy sauce, sesame oil, hot sauce.

Recipe For Homemade Flavouring For Noodles

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