The Daring Cooks run hot and cold

This month the Daring Cook’s challenge was to make cold soba noodles and tempura to accompany them.

Mrs. Monkeyshines was initially a bit dubious – she’s not the biggest fan of Japanese flavors, which often taste strongly (to her) of seaweed or fish. Further, we’ve had cold noodles for lunch before and, well, they left us a bit cold. However, we do like to honor the DC’s and give everything a try and really are we glad we did. These noodles had us merrily slurping away. This recipe will certainly enter our rotation – especially come the warmer months ahead.

The challenge was pretty open to what we could make, but Lisa from Blueberry Girl asked that we respect Japanese cooking/eating by keeping your food, clean, fresh and simple. For that reason we chose a riff on our favorite duck salad as the Brussels sprouts and mushrooms are in season now and we thought that the duck would pair perfectly with buckwheat soba noodles. The Monkey made a fantastic miso dipping sauce which really brought it all together. Thank you Lisa for hosting this challenge – it was definitely a hit.

Hiyashi Soba

Recipes courtesy of Globetrotter Diaries and About.com-Japanese Food
Serves 4

Soba Noodles:

Ingredients
2 quarts (2 Liters) water + 1 cup cold water, separate
12 oz (340 g) dried soba (buckwheat) noodles (or any Asian thin noodle)

Directions:

Cooking the noodles:

1. Heat 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the noodles a small bundle at a time, stirring gently to separate. When the water returns to a full boil, add 1 cup of cold water. Repeat this twice. When the water returns to a full boil, check the noodles for doneness. You want to cook them until they are firm-tender. Do not overcook them.
2. Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse well under cold running water until the noodles are cool. This not only stops the cooking process, but also removes the starch from the noodles. This is an essential part of soba noodle making. Once the noodles are cool, drain them and cover them with a damp kitchen towel and set them aside allowing them to cool completely. While they’re cooling, you can make the tempura.

Common Hiyashi Soba Toppings:

• Thin omelet strips
• Ham
• Boiled chicken breasts
• Cucumber
• Boiled bean sprouts
• Tomatoes
• Toasted nori (Dried Seaweed)
• Green onions
• Wasabi powder
• Finely grated daikon (Japanese radish)
• Beni Shoga (Pickled Ginger)
• We used 1 leg duck confit;
• 2 scallions, julienned; and
• 1 carrot, peeled into strips

All toppings should be julienne, finely diced or grated. Prepare and refrigerate covered until needed.

Serving:

Traditionally soba is served on a bamboo basket tray, but if you don’t have these, you can simply serve them on a plate or in a bowl. Divide up the noodles, laying them on your serving dishes. Sprinkle each one with nori. In small side bowl or cup, place 1/2 cup (120 ml) of dipping sauce into each. In separate small side dishes, serve each person a small amount of wasabi, grated daikon, and green onions.
The noodles are eaten by sprinkling the desired garnishes into the dipping sauce and eating the noodles by first dipping them into the sauce. Feel free to slurp away! Oishii!

 

Tempura

Recipes courtesy of pink bites and itsy bitsy foodies
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 egg yolk from a large egg
1 cup (240 ml) iced water
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) plain (all purpose) flour, plus extra for dredging
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) cornflour (also called cornstarch)
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (2½ gm) (0.09 oz) baking powder
oil, for deep frying preferably vegetable
ice water bath, for the tempura batter (a larger bowl than what will be used for the tempura should be used. Fill the large bowl with ice and some water, set aside)

Very cold vegetables and seafood of your choice ie:

• Sweet potato, peeled, thinly sliced, blanched
• Carrot, peeled, thinly sliced diagonally
• Pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed, thinly sliced blanched
• Green beans, trimmed
• Green bell pepper/capsicum, seeds removed, cut into 2cm (¾ inch)-wide strips
• Assorted fresh mushrooms
• Eggplant cut into strips (traditionally it’s fanned)
• Onions sliced
• We used Brussels sprouts, halved then steamed 2 minutes to just soften them and
• King trumpet mushrooms sliced ~ 1/8” thick

Directions:

1. Place the iced water into a mixing bowl. Lightly beat the egg yolk and gradually pour into the iced water, stirring (preferably with chopsticks) and blending well. Add flours and baking powder all at once, stroke a few times with chopsticks until the ingredients are loosely combined. The batter should be runny and lumpy. Place the bowl of batter in an ice water bath to keep it cold while you are frying the tempura. The batter as well as the vegetables and seafood have to be very cold. The temperature shock between the hot oil and the cold veggies help create a crispy tempura. Our batter was initially too thick – it coated the mushrooms evenly and made them sort of gummy. We added more water to the batter and the texture improved hugely.
2. Heat the oil in a large pan or a wok. For vegetables, the oil should be 320°F/160°C; for seafood it should be 340°F/170°C. It is more difficult to maintain a steady temperature and produce consistent tempura if you don’t have a thermometer, but it can be done. You can test the oil by dropping a piece of batter into the hot oil. If it sinks a little bit and then immediately rises to the top, the oil is ready.
3. Start with the vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, that won’t leave a strong odor in the oil. Dip them in a shallow bowl of flour to lightly coat them and then dip them into the batter. Slide them into the hot oil, deep frying only a couple of pieces at a time so that the temperature of the oil does not drop.
4. Place finished tempura pieces on a wire rack so that excess oil can drip off. Continue frying the other items, frequently scooping out any bits of batter to keep the oil clean and prevent the oil (and the remaining tempura) from getting a burned flavor.
5. Serve immediately for the best flavor, but they can also be eaten cold.

Miso Sauce

1cup light chicken stock 
1/3 cup Sweet Vermouth
2tbs soy sauce 
1/2 tsp white miso paste
1 scallion, sliced thin

This was our rendition of the dipping sauce – probably not too traditional but the sweet vermouth worked surprisingly well. Heat the vermouth gently to cook off the alcohol; add the chicken stock, soy sauce and miso and heat together. Remove from the heat and cool; add the scallions prior to serving.

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com