JAPANESE NOODLES IN MISO SOUP MISO NIKOMI UDON

Steps:

• Cut the chicken into small pieces and salt lightly.
• Soak the shiitake in water until the tops (but not the stems) are soft.
• Remove the stems and cook briefly in a small amount of water flavored with soy sauce and sugar, to flavor mildly; I would use about 1/4 cup water with 2 to 3 teaspoons each soy sauce and sugar.
• Prepare the aburage by placing it in a metal sieve in the sink and pouring 1 to 2 cups boiling water over each side, being careful not to burn yourself.
• This is to remove some of the oil.
• Rinse in warm water, squeeze dry and cut into 3 by 1/2 cm rectangles.
• Wash and scrape the gobo with the edge of a knife (the most flavor is just below the surface of the skin, so don't scrape too deeply; the scraped areas will darken almost immediately, this can't completely be helped), and cut into slivers, as if you are sharpening a pencil, into a bowl of water.
• Cut the green onion into thin slices.
• Peel the hard boiled eggs and slice horizontally.
• Stir the miso and dashi together and strain.
• Place miso mixture into a large pan; add the milk and just bring to a boil.
• Immediately lower the heat to simmer.
• Boil the udon in a lot of boiling water in a separate pan.
• Stop cooking when the udon is still a little firm; drain and rinse under cold running water to remove starch.
• Add the drained udon, chicken, drained shiitake, aburage, and gobo to the pan containing the simmering miso mixture, in this order.
• When the udon and chicken are cooked through add the kamaboko and green onion and increase heat so that the soup will just boil up once more.
• Remove from heat, divide into individual bowls, garnish with hard boiled egg slices and sprinkle on sansho.