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Ingredients for one serving: One bundle of soba noodles, 3 cups of water, a bunch of spinach, a couple of chopped green onions and soba noodle soup base (we will talk about this later). If you'd like to make cold soba, you won't need the spinach, but you will need a sheet of nori (dried seaweed) and wasabi (Japanese horseradish). (These are available in the Asian food section of most grocery stores.)
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You may have seen a package of buckwheat noodles that looks like this at your local grocery store as soba is growing in popularity, particularly as a health food. A package typically contains 3 or more bundles, and one bundle is approximately one serving.
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Boil plenty of water in a large sauce pan and add the soba just as you would with pasta. We usually don't measure the amount of water, but about 6 cups should do for one bundle of soba. If you cook two bundles, increase the water just a bit. Boil the noodles for about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. If it looks like your noodles are about to boil over, a good trick is to splash a bit of cold water into the pot.
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While the noodles are cooking, prepare the soup. Of course you can make your soup from scratch, but we will make it easy here and use this ready-made bottled soup base. This particular kind is made by the Japanese company "Kikkoman" and it says "Memmi, Noodle Soup Base" on the bottle. This is probably the most common kind in the States, but any other kind will work. (And if you really want to know how to make the soup from scratch, send us an email!)
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Boil 3 cups of water and add 1/3 cup of soup base.
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| Cut the spinach into three bunches, and in a separate pot, boil it for 3 to 4 minutes.
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| When the noodles are ready, pour them into a strainer.
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Now this is a very important detail. Rinse the noodles really well with COLD water. (This gives them a great texture.) Then, drain the water thoroughly.
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Put the noodles into a large bowl and pour on the hot soup. (Before you do, you might want to run hot water over them very quickly so that they won't make the soup too cold.
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Add the spinach and chopped green onions to the bowl, and it is ready to serve. You know what is good with this?: Shichimi pepper! (Please refer to our "Perfect Miso Soup" recipe for more on this.) Another tasty idea is to put a couple pieces of tempura in your soup--you can sometimes find pretty good frozen tempura at your local grocery store.
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For Cold Soba
(Zaru-Soba) |
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Follow the same steps as above for making the noodles, and while they are boiling, prepare the yakumi or "garnish." Chop green onions and cut nori (seaweed sheets) into thin strips. (Nori is the black seaweed sheet that sushi rolls are wrapped in.)
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After you drain and rinse the noodles, serve them with the nori sprinkled on top.
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Place the chopped green onion and a bit of wasabi on a small side dish. You will put these into the dipping sauce as you eat. Prepare the dipping sauce by adding 1 part sauce and 4 parts water to a small cup. (If you've seen the Imari pottery section of our website, you will be familiar with sobachoko, soba noodle dipping cups.)
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Now, it is ready. Add a bit of the green onions and wasabi to your dipping sauce, take some noodles, and dip in. Zaru-soba is especially good in hot weather, but people eat it year-round. It is also traditional to eat zaru-soba on New Year's Eve as a way of wishing for a long life--as long as a soba noodle.
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