We start with a shiitake dashi broth, made with fresh, tiny, Washington shiitake mushrooms. The dashi base is kombu and bonito, from Tsukiji market in Tokyo.

Then we add a dash of soy, rice vinegar, and mirin or sake.

What makes it amazing is my wife's reduced duck stock, cooked for 7 hours. There is virtually no fat, and when chilled it forms an aspic.

For this dish, we added water chestnut, snow peas, fried fish cakes, pulled duck meat, sesame seeds, and a pinch of togarashi pepper.

The noodles are thin dried udon from Sato Yosuke, called inaniwa udon.