I love bowls of noodles, filled with comforting soup and various toppings. It feels like a cure for sickness. There’s something so lovely about warm noodle soup, whether it’s summer or winter.

This version is the fancy kind, like an upgraded noodle bowl. I chose a nicer piece of steak (rump, to be precise because I prefer it over sirloin) so though it ended up with smaller amounts for each person, the bits we had were lovely. But more importantly, I don’t find that you need that much meat in any case, because there’s so many other lovely things alongside the steak in the noodle bowl.

Like the prawns, which are flash-fried in soy sauce so that the latter kind of caramelises around the shell of the prawn, and creates a delicious, slightly smokey flavour that really sets in when you peel them. If you’ve never had prawns this way, I suggest you try it, with or without the noodles — it’s my favourite way of cooking shell-on prawns or langoustines, or even crawfish!

As you may have read before, I love recipes where elements are easily swapped or changed or added or detracted. So this recipe is my kind of heaven. Don’t fancy steak? Just sub in some slow cooked pork belly, some teriyaki chicken, or some baked tofu. Don’t want prawns? Change it for some other type of seafood, or skip it altogether and add more of the mushrooms. Don’t like parsley or mint? Try coriander. Prefer egg noodles to rice udon noodles? Go ahead. Want to change the vegetable stock? Go ahead.

It’s a superb sort of base recipe to implement your ideas and what you fancy on the day. So have fun, and get creating!

Makes enough for 3 light dinners, or more for 2 people.  Read More