Bukkake udon is one of the special dishes from the Okayama and Kagawa prefectures, where the recipe differs in each prefecture: there are “cold udon” and “hot udon,” which have in common the fact that a thick sauce is poured from above.
The word bukkake refers to “splashed” or “poured” and derives from the serving style of this noodle dish, where the soup, meant as a sauce, is poured over.
Grated daikon, ginger, scallion and lemon are often used as toppings.
Grated wasabi is mainly used for cold dishes, while hot dishes use ginger.
It is said that the dish originated in a restaurant in the Kagawa prefecture, where a customer too lazy to dip the noodles in zaru udon sauce poured the soup directly over the noodles.
Another particular form of udon is “zaru udon,” where generally cold soba (buckwheat-based) is seasoned with shredded nori and served on a zaru (bamboo mat) accompanied by mentsuyu sauce, a mix of dashi, mirin, and shoyu, and with wasabi.
With the addition of beef sautéed in soy sauce, they are called Nikku (beef) bukkake udon.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 2 servings
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Japanese
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons dashi
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon mirin
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/4 cups water
- 8.8 oz udon (or soba or other type of noodles)
- 2 boiled eggs (soft yolk)
- 1 scallion
- to taste fresh ginger
- to taste sesame seeds
Steps
Prepare the sauce: mix dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in water, bring to a boil.
Cook the udon, if you want to serve them cold, stop the cooking under cold water.
In a bowl, arrange the udon first, then the toppings. I chose boiled egg (but you can also use just the raw yolk), scallion, sesame seeds, and ginger.
Finally, add the sauce (hot or cold depending on your choice) by pouring it from above.
There is also ready-made mentsuyu sauce that can be used for this preparation.
