Noooooooooodles.

That whole thing about the end of soup weather might have been a smidge premature, but we’ve had our say and we’re sticking to it. Soup season has ended. However! We’re just in the preliminary warmups for noodle season.

You see liquid at the edge of that bowl? Pay no attention. It’s not soup. It’s… um… wet stir fry. That’s it. Wet noodles. They’re better for you.

*Ahem*

Noodles can be… well, kind of like an addiction for us, sadly. We’re carbohydrate addicts, and when we make stir-fry, we try and make sure it’s three quarters vegetables and tofu, and only one quarter noodles or rice, because really, it’s all about the veggies and the best stir fry has a good balance of each. This quick non-soup is all about the tofu — both in creamy firm chunks and in yuba bean curd sheets.

Yuba is made from the process of making tofu — boiling soy milk and adding coagulant leaves a thin skin atop the liquid. It’s skimmed off and sort of folded up to dry, and the resulting thin, rubbery skin can be rehydrated and reused.

The best way we’ve found to use yuba skin in noodle dishes is to place thinly cut strips in boiling water and a tablespoon of soy sauce (or dry bouillon mix) along with dehydrated mushrooms, and leave them overnight to hydrate together. Once we’ve started our stir fry by browning sliced onions, finely chopped garlic, firm tofu chunks and ground beef substitute, we add bok choi, bell peppers, Thai chiles, and whatever additional veggies we’re adding. Finally, we toss in cooked noodles (either the straight-to-wok kind, or ones we’ve already cooked up to a slightly chewy, almost-done texture), the rehydrated mushrooms, yuba strips and the flavorful mushroom water. A quick, hot satisfying meal that you can almost enjoy like a soup.

Almost.

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