Hot Weather Cold Food: Summer is here!
We had our first bout of summer heat wave yesterday. It was a scorching 40c yesterday. Definitely too hot for any sort of hot or even warm food. Too hot to even have an appetite. The only food that I could think of perfect for such a hot day is chocolate sorbet. *yay* Oh. hm. Sorry. Typo there. Now you know what I have been thinking about all day long. *blush*
Right. Let me start over again. On such a hot dry and arid day, many would have suggested having a refreshing cold salad for dinner. It just never occur to me to consider salad as main if I am to eat at home. I prefer my dinner to be nutritious and well-balanced, and most importantly the ability to maintain a balanced level of blood sugar so we don't feel hungry easily. *hint hint: diet tip here*
So we had asian-style cold noodles last night.
♥ Hiyashi Soba
Hiyashi soba (Japanese style cold noodles) is quick and easy to make, especially when you have a premixed bottle of soba sauce on hand. Make sure you have it refrigerated first.
First, bring a pot of water to boil and cook soba according to instructions on packs. Once cooked, rinse under cold water until soba is completely cool. I rinsed mine until it is relatively cool and then soak it in a pot of cold water with a few ice cubes. Strain and place on a large plate.
While waiting for the water to boil and soba to cook, julienne some cucumber and carrots then soak them in cold water for a few minutes. This additional steps keep the veggies crunchy. I then sliced up some korean ham and seafood stick. I have also added slices of pan-fried eggs to the cold noodles. You can use hard boiled eggs instead too.
Arrange all ingredients nicely on top of soba and serve with cold soba dipping sauce!
Quick and easy. Dinner ready in about 20minutes!
♥ Korean-style Cold Noodles
I wasn't up to Japanese sauce last night. I wanted something spicy that can re-activate my appetite. So instead of soba sauce, I added a dollop of Korean hot bean paste to my plate of cold noodles.
It took a bit of work to mix the hot bean paste into my noodles. I should have mixed the hot bean paste with a little of rice vinegar and chicken broth first to make it more runny.
♥ appetizing spicy cold noodles
Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed my spicy cold noodles so no complain at all about the long mixing process. The picture might not look so appetizing but trust me, it is quite delicious especially if you have a thing for spicy food.
I can already think of a few other variations of the sauce: chinese spicy bean sauce (la dou ban jiang), chinese sweet bean sauce (tian mian jiang) and even Indonesian thick sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)! But what I am more interested to try out is mik's chilled noodles with soy milk. ;-)
♥ pinkcocoa tabete @ Wednesday, December 01, 2004
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