Hōtō Noodle Soup (Hōtō Nabe) is a noodle soup dish with flat noodles, pumpkin and other vegetables. The ingredients are cooked in a miso-flavoured broth. It is a perfect dish on a cold day but of course you can eat it in summer too.
If you use konbu-dashi, you can make a vegan HōTō.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 50g / 1.8oz flour
- 50g / 1.8oz strong flour / bread flour
- 50ml / 1.7floz water
- 200g / 7.1oz pumpkin (note 2)
- 70g / 2.5oz daikon
- 40g / 1.4oz carrot
- 2 shiitake mushrooms (note 3)
- 30g / 1.1oz shimeji mushrooms (note 3)
- 200g / 7.1oz Chinese cabbage
- 1 aburaage
- 30g / 1.1oz green onion
- 800ml / 1.7pt niboshi-dashi (note 4)
- 60g / 2.1oz miso (note 5)
- ½ tsp soy sauce
- ½ tsp mirin
- 1 tsp cooking sake
- ½ tsp sugar
- Shichimi tōgarashi (optional)
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Using the Hōtō Noodles ingredients, follow the recipe instructions for Home-made Udon Noodles with slight variations as per the following:
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The resting time of the dough can be reduced to 10-15 minutes instead of 30-60 minutes.
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When the dough is stretched to 3mm / ⅛" thick, the surface areas will be smaller than the area indicated in the recipe card due to the smaller amount of flour used.
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Cut the folded dough into 1cm / ⅜" wide strips, instead of 3mm / ⅛" wide. Coat the noodles with plenty of flour.
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Pumpkin: Remove seeds and cut across the skin into about 4cm / 1½" cubes so that each piece has skin on one side.
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Daikon: Quarter or halve (if the root is thin) the daikon vertically, then slice into 5mm thick pieces.
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Carrot: Halve the carrot vertically (or omit this if the root is thin), then slice into 5mm thick pieces.
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Shimeji mushrooms: Remove the bottom part of the stems that are clustering all mushrooms together and divide into a few clusters.
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Chinese cabbage: Halve each leaf vertically, then cut them perpendicular to the first cut, into 4cm long pieces.
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Aburaage: Pour boiling water (not in ingredients) over the aburaage to remove excess oil on the surface. Squeeze the water out. Cut the sheet of aburaage lengthwise in half, then cut it perpendicular to the first cut into 4 equal widths. You will get 8 squarish pieces.
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Green onion: Cut diagonally into 6cm / 2⅜" long pieces.
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Put dashi stock, daikon, carrot, and pumpkin (skin side down) in a shallow pot (note 6). Bring it to a boil and cook for 2-3 minutes over high heat.
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Add Hōtō noodles to the pot, untangling the noodles with chopsticks or a fork. When the broth starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium low and cook for 5 minutes. Occasionally stir the noodles so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
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Add Chinese cabbage, shimeji mushrooms and aburaage to the pot, increase the heat to medium high. Cook for 5 minutes.
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Add green onions and remaining Miso-flavoured Broth ingredients, except miso, to the pot. Cook for a minute.
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As soon as the broth starts boiling, turn the heat off. Serve immediately with shichimi tōgarashi (if using).
1. You don’t have to have the identical list of vegetables to go into your Hōtō Nabe. But you must have pumpkin. Other vegetables you may consider are potato, taro, and burdock.
2. I used Kent pumpkin as it is close to Japanese pumpkin from both a taste and appearance perspective. But you can use different types of pumpkin.
3. You can use other Asian mushrooms such as enoki mushrooms and king oyster mushrooms.
4. Please see the section, About Niboshi-dashi in the post for more details.
I used niboshi-dashi because it goes very well with miso-flavoured broth. But you can use standard awase-dashi. If you use konbu-dashi, you can make it vegan Hōtō.
Please visit Varieties of Dashi Stock for more details and the instructions to make different types of dashi stock.
5. Because Hōtō originated in Yamanashi prefecture, which belongs to Kanto (the eastern region of Japan including Tokyo), brown miso is usually used to make Hōtō. If you only have white miso, you may omit the sugar because white miso is sweeter than brown miso.
6. Traditional Hōtō uses freshly made Hōtō noodles. But if you don't have enough time to make noodles on the day, you can make them the day before. Make sure that you coat the noodles with plenty of flour.
The broth may not become as thick as it should but it is still very close to the real Hōtō Nabe.
7. If you put a large lump of miso in the broth, it will take too long to dilute. Instead of using a sieve, you can dilute the miso in a ladle by adding a small amount of broth to the ladle with miso.
8. I cooked Hōtō in 2 single-serving clay pots. But you can cook 2 servings in a large pot. A pot of about 22cm diameter would fit all the ingredients for two people snuggly. If the opening of the pot is too wide, the water might evaporate too fast, making the broth salty.
9. Nutrition per serving.
serving: 816g calories: 404kcal fat: 7.6g (12%) saturated fat: 1.5g (8%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 2.6g monounsaturated fat: 1.7g cholesterol: 3.9mg (1%) sodium: 1901mg (79%) potassium: 1584mg (45%) carbohydrates: 63g (21%) dietary fibre: 6.9g (28%) sugar: 11g protein: 23g vitamin a: 330% vitamin c: 111% calcium: 17% iron: 31%