Since the fall I’ve been taking a few university courses in Mandarin Chinese, and so for a while I’ve wanted to feature some more Asian-inspired dishes here on Bachelor Pan. I wrote about the free Stonesoup e-cookbook a little while ago, but I’m just now getting around to making this lovely soup from it again.

This is an incredibly simple soup that uses only a few ingredients and takes just a few minutes. It uses baby bok choy (or Chinese cabbage) and soba (buckwheat) noodles. Soba noodles are hearty and fairly good for you, and overall this soup is warm and comforting.

Bring about a cup-and-a-half of vegetable stock to a boil.

While it heats up, rinse the bok choy well and separate the leaves. I did this by chopping off the bottom, but you can just pull the leaves off.

Once the vegetable stock is boiling, add the soba noodles and simmer them for two minutes or until they separate.

Add the bok choy leaves and about a tablespoon of soy sauce. If you like heat, add a pinch of chili flakes or crushed red pepper flakes.

Let them mingle for a minute or so, and it’s done! You don’t want to overcook this, as the noodles will cook a little further in the soup after you remove it from the heat.

I hope you enjoy this. The broth is very flavourful and the soba noodles are really quite tasty. I challenged myself by eating this with chopsticks, but I was a little bit messy. Use a spoon if you’d like. If you try this, let me know what you think!