Eating cheap in Tokyo: Chicken macaroni soup

As the world plummets into financial chaos, I can’t help but think a lot about scaling down in every aspect of my life. How do I save money but maximize what I get?

Besides beauty products and entertainment, food is another aspect I’ve been looking to cut corners on.

As an avid cook, I appreciate expensive and fresh produce but I think I’ve to avoid them completely as the yen hovers at such a high rate. I love my food and don’t want to compromise too much in terms of nutrition and flavour.

So I thought why don’t I write posts about how to eat cheap in one of the world’s most expensive cities? This new column, “Eating cheap in Tokyo”, would provide healthy, affordable, quick recipes for the Tokyo urbanite.

Why would this column be different from any other recession recipe series? Well, let’s look at the challenges at hand:

+ Unless you’re Japanese, learning how to cook Japanese needs some effort. Japanese ingredients are easier and cheaper to buy than foreign imports, so it makes sense to go Nippon in your kitchen.

+ Pasta becomes the enemy. This is probably one of the most readily available foreign food in supermarkets, so many expats rely on this as a staple but it gets boring pretty quickly.

+ Even produce in foreign supermarkets like Nissin and Daimaru Peacock have limited variety, and even if you find something exotic, it’ll probably cost the earth.

+ Conbini food sucks a**. This is one part of Japanese lifestyle that I’m against — cheap food in microwaveable containers that provide little or no nutrition. There’s a conbini on every corner of the city so it’s an easy fallback, but to a foodie like me, it just doesn’t cut it. I would rather eat MacDonald’s. No, I take that back. MacDonald’s is worse. Don’t get me wrong, I love the conbini as a concept and to indulge once in awhile is fine, but as a daily solution to quick, affordable meals, it’s just wrong.

-

ANYWAY.

Today’s recipe is Chicken Macaroni Soup. It’s an old fave from Singapore — I can’t get all the ingredients here so I improvised.

What you need:

Two handfuls of macaroni pasta = 100JPY
Half a chicken breast = 60JPY
A handful of bunashimeiji mushrooms = 60JPY
One chicken cube = 40JPY
Two leaves of hakusai (large pale green cabbage; costs 158JPY for a bushful) = 20JPY

Boil some water to cook the macaroni. Once it’s done (seven minutes usually gets any pasta to an al dente texture), drain and set it aside.

Simmer some water (a quarter of a medium-sized pot) for the soup. Add two teaspoons of soy sauce, a teaspoon of mirin, a healthy dash of pepper, a few drops of sesame oil, and if you have, dried scallops — they would transform this simple chicken soup into a lip-smackingly delicious broth.

I get a packet every time I fly back to Singapore because they are ridiculously expensive at Nissin (five big dried scallops for 1200JPY). But this dish still tastes good without it — in fact, you can chuck some coriander (200JPY) into this for extra flavour.

Total cost (with the coriander) = 480JPY
Total time = 10 minutes

I calculated the costs of the ingredients by estimating how much I used out of a full portion.

And this is great hangover food, too. It’s simple enough to make with a headache and has enough bulk to soak up any leftover alcohol in your tum.

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