soba – そば
Today it was quite warm in Toronto and I did not feel like eating anything warm. I decided to have cold soba noodles. It is a tasty meal that is sure to cool you down a bit. The soba noodles are served cold and they are dipped in mentsuyu which is also served cold. You can add extras to the soup such as green onions, wasabi, daikon, etc. The extras in the soup will generally get caught in the noodles as you dip them in the soup and eat them. The soba noodles should be eaten with chopsticks and they should be slurped.
Soba noodles are thin Japanese noodles made from buckwheat. You should be able to find dry soba noodles at your local Asian grocery store. The usually come wrapped in individual servings.
Mentsuyu is a soup that can be used in warm soups or as a cool dipping soup. You can either buy mentsuyou or you can make your own. You should be able to find mentsuyu at your local Asian grocery store. Mentsuyou typically comes in a concentrated form and it should be dilluted with water or dashi.
Ingredients:
1 serving soba noodles
1/2 cup mentsuyu (cold)
1 green onion (optional, chopped)
1 teaspoon daikon (optional, grated)
1 teaspoon wasabi (optional, grated)
1 teaspoon seasame seeds (optional, toasted)
nori (optional, cut into long thin strips)
Directions:
1. Cook the soba noodles as directed.
2. Rinse the soba noodles in cold water until the noodles are cold.
3. Strain the noodles and place them on a plate.
4. Place the mentsuyu in a small bowl.
めんつゆ
Mentsuyu is a Japanese soup base. It is used both as a cool dipping soup and as a warm soup. It is quite simple to make and tasty. It can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge for a couple of days. My favorite use for mentsuyu is as a dipping soup for cold soba noodles.
You can play around with the ratios of dashi to soy to mirin to find the flavour that you like best. I have also seen sake and/or sugar added.
Mentsuyu used for warm soup it usually more diluted and would use 1 cup of dashi.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup dashi
2 tablespoons soy
2 tablespoons mirin
Directions:
1. Heat everything in a pan until it comes to a boil and remove from heat.
You may want to check this website for other variations of mentsuyu. (Jp)
