Classic Cold Soba

Classic Cold Soba makes a great summer dinner as the noodles are served room temperature or even cold. We like to serve the noodles with sliced leftover roast pork, such as leftover Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Maple Chipotle Sauce. Steamed Edamame makes a nice accompaniment as well. To find the soba noodles, the dashi kombu and the bonito flakes that the recipe requires, you will probably have to venture to an Asian grocery. Once you have them though, they last a long time. We now buy these ingredients in fairly large quantities and always have them on hand. For convenience, I am reproducing the recipe we use here. However, this information has been gleaned from two different sources and combined into one. The first source is norecipes.com and the second is seriouseats.com. I quickly tired of paging through multiple page documents every time I wanted to make this, and so here is a more user-friendly version.

Ingredients

For the Dashi:

2 C cold water
6 g dashi kombu (a kind of flat seaweed)
15 g bonito flakes

For the Dipping Sauce:

1 1/2 C prepared Dashi
1/2 C Soy Sauce
1/2 C Mirin
1/4 tsp granulated sugar

For the Noodles:

1 package soba noodles
Large pot of water, salted liberally

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine the cold water and the dashi kombu. On medium heat, bring to a near boil. Remove the dashi kombu. Take off the heat, and add in the bonito flakes. Steep for two minutes. Strain in a strainer lined with a coffee liner or a paper towel.

Measure the dashi to 1 1/2 cups. Rinse out the saucepan and return the dashi to the saucepan. Add the soy sauce, mirin and granulated sugar. On medium heat, bring to a gentle boil. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Bring the large pot of liberally salted water to a rolling boil. Add the soba noodles, stir once, and boil for 5 minutes. Noodles should be tender when done. Remove from the boiling water and put straight into cold water until ready to serve.

Serve noodles with individual bowls of dipping sauce.

Leftover noodles and sauce will keep a few days in the refrigerator, but you should store them in separate containers.

Pad Thai with Shrimp

Pad Thai with Shrimp is an Alton Brown recipe from Food Network. I have re-written his recipe for a couple of reasons. First, his original recipe only makes two servings. I try to have all of my tried-and-true recipes sized appropriately for my family. We like leftovers for weekday lunches, so I quadrupled his recipe. Second, there is a lot going on in his original recipe, perhaps too much definitely more than we are able to manage for a week night dinner. And honestly, more than it needs. For this reason, I have left a few things out, like marinated tofu, salted cabbage and dried shrimp. The remaining ingredients can be purchased in any decent mom-and-pop Asian grocery store. The rice noodles I like to put in a bowl in hot tap water a couple of hours before I want to use them. My 12-year-old gets home at 4:30pm and this is an easy job for her to do.

Ingredients

12 – 16 oz thin rice stick noodles
1/2 C fish sauce
1 block palm sugar
1/4 C rice wine vinegar
4 oz tamarind paste
Canola oil
1 bunch scallions, chopped
8 tsp minced garlic (1/8 C + 2 tsp)
3 whole eggs, beaten slightly
12 oz shrimp, shells removed and deveined
Bean sprouts
Roasted salted peanuts, chopped

Directions

One to two hours ahead of time, place the rice stick noodles in a mixing bowl and cover with hot tap water. Let sit until ready to start cooking. Drain.

Combine the fish sauce, palm sugar, rice wine vinegar and tamarind paste in a small bowl and set aside.

Place wok over high heat. Once hot, add enough oil to coat. Heat until the oil shimmers. Add about 2/3 of the scallions and then the garlic, and cook for 10 to 15 seconds. Add the eggs to the pan; once the eggs begin to set up, about 15 to 20 seconds, stir to scramble. Add the remaining ingredients in the following order and toss after each addition: noodles, sauce, shrimp, a couple of handfuls of bean sprouts, and a handful of peanuts. Toss until shrimp are pink and everything is heated through.

Garnish with remaining scallions, and more bean sprouts and peanuts.

Thai Pork and Noodles

Prepared here with chicken breast instead of pork

Thai Pork and Noodles is affectionately known as “Green Noodles” at our house. It calls for cilantro, so it fits well into a “Week of Cilantro.” Rice noodles come in two basic varieties: fresh and dehydrated. We’ve tried the fresh and have never discovered the secret to keeping them from staying in one big clump, so we always use the dehydrated. They sell dehydrated rice noodles in most mom-and-pop Asian groceries, regardless of whether their focus is Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Malaysian or Japanese. They are trying to fulfill the needs of a diverse niche market. We have the best luck re-hydrating the dehydrated noodles in a bowl filled with hot tap water. If you do it this way, you do have to let it sit for a couple of hours. This has become the job of my eldest daughter, who at eleven, is old enough to be “in charge” when we aren’t home. Some directions say to use boiling water, which cuts down the soaking time significantly, but in my experience doing it this way increases the risk of your noodles disintegrating into a puddle of goo in the bottom of your bowl. We reduce the number of red jalapenos down to two; if all I can find is green, which is typical, sometimes we just use one. Red jalapenos are sweeter than the green ones, so you can get away with using more if you are cooking for capsaicin-sensitive people, like children. We also use regular vegetable oil or canola oil instead of the peanut oil.  As pictured above, we often do this with chicken breast instead of pork, although it is tasty both ways!