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1
Cut the chicken into small pieces and salt lightly.
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2
Soak the shiitake in water until the tops (but not the stems) are soft.
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3
Remove the stems and cook briefly in a small amount of water flavored with soy sauce and sugar, to flavor mildly; I would use about 1/4 cup water with 2 to 3 teaspoons each soy sauce and sugar.
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4
Prepare the aburage by placing it in a metal sieve in the sink and pouring 1 to 2 cups boiling water over each side, being careful not to burn yourself.
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5
This is to remove some of the oil.
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6
Rinse in warm water, squeeze dry and cut into 3 by 1/2 cm rectangles.
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7
Wash and scrape the gobo with the edge of a knife (the most flavor is just below the surface of the skin, so don't scrape too deeply; the scraped areas will darken almost immediately, this can't completely be helped), and cut into slivers, as if you are sharpening a pencil, into a bowl of water.
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8
Cut the green onion into thin slices.
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9
Peel the hard boiled eggs and slice horizontally.
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10
Stir the miso and dashi together and strain.
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11
Place miso mixture into a large pan; add the milk and just bring to a boil.
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12
Immediately lower the heat to simmer.
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13
Boil the udon in a lot of boiling water in a separate pan.
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14
Stop cooking when the udon is still a little firm; drain and rinse under cold running water to remove starch.
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15
Add the drained udon, chicken, drained shiitake, aburage, and gobo to the pan containing the simmering miso mixture, in this order.
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16
When the udon and chicken are cooked through add the kamaboko and green onion and increase heat so that the soup will just boil up once more.
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17
Remove from heat, divide into individual bowls, garnish with hard boiled egg slices and sprinkle on sansho.
