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During my past year of blogging, I’ve had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of several young, muti-talented, vivacious bloggers, from all over the world. Included are photographers, travelogue’ers, manga (Japanese cartoons) aficionados, ones who chronicle their life experiences/thoughts, and Foodies.
One such blogger who stole my heart is talented, delightful
Mimi Takano of Les Saveurs de Mimi. Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Mimi is currently a NYU student studying media, culture and communications, as well as food studies. Mimi completed an Introduction to Foods and Food Science course, where she cooked for many hours. Mimi hopes to enroll in a culinary school.
She just returned from her semester of NYU studies in Madrid. During her stay and travels in Europe, Mimi documented her experiences in her blog. Mimi is back in her apartment kitchen to ‘whip up’ some new goodies to share with us!
I am delighted to introduce Mimi as my first Guest Post presenter.
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Hi!
Before I get started, I want to thank Fae so much for giving me the chance to write this guest blog for her.
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but NYC is getting pretty hot. There is no doubt that ice cream, sorbets and popsicle are a great way to cool off in this summer heat. However, we can’t really eat these ice-cold sweets for meals. So I’m here to share a good recipe that I’ve grown up eating all throughout the hot, humid summers back in Tokyo.
Sōmen, cold Japanese noodles, is one of my favorite meals during the hot months and trust me, after you make it, it’ll be yours too. Sōmen are thin (about 1.3 mm in diameter) white Japanese wheat noodles that have been stretched and air-dried. Typically, sōmen is served cold in a basket (sometimes with ice cubes) with a light flavored dipping sauce called tsuyu. Tsuyu is made from a katsuobushi (bonito flake) broth and can be flavored with different garnishes (ginger, welsh onion, etc.). Luckily, you can pick up ready-made tsuyu (Memmi) from any Asian grocery store.
Sōmen is sometimes, served in a flume of bamboo, carrying ice-cold water. This is called nagashi sōmen (flowing sōmen) and is a pretty fun meal considering that your chopsticks skills are put to the ultimate test. Catch the flowing noodles and you get to eat, don’t catch them and someone else might. Unfortunately, I don’t have a flume of bamboo lying around my apartment, so I stuck with the more typical way of serving sōmen.
So, let’s get started!
Sōmen • そうめん
Recipe by: Les Saveurs de Mimi (lessaveursdemimi.wordpress.com)
INGREDIENTS
• Sōmen noodles (2 ~ 3 bundles)
• 2 ~ 3 eggs
• 1 cucumber
• 6 slices of char-siu or ham
• 3 scallions or welsh onions
• ¼ cup of tsuyu (ready-made noodle broth)
• A few drops of sesame oil
DIRECTIONS
1. Break the eggs and add a little drop of tsuyu and sesame oil. Heat a small non-stick pan and pour a thin layer of the eggs into it. Gently flip it and cook until done. You want thin little egg pancakes. Repeat with all the egg batter and set aside to cool. Cut the cucumber, the ham and the egg pancakes into thin strips. Cut the scallions as well. These will be your garnish.
2. In a measuring cup (make sure it’s big) and measure out ¼ cup of the tsuyu. Add a couple of drops of sesame oil and mix. Set it aside.
3. In a big pot, bring water to a boil. Unlike pasta, it is unnecessary to add any salt to the water. Once the pot is boiling, drop in the noodles and cook as directed in the package. Sōmen cooks very fast, due to its thinness, so it should be between 2 to 3 minutes. Once the noodles are cooked, add some of the noodle water to the tsuyu. You want a 1:4 ratio of tsuyu and noodle water. Drain the rest of the noodles into a draining basket and run cold water over the noodles to cool it.
4. Now you can either place the basket over a plate and add a few ice cubes and serve it with small dipping cups of the tsuyu as a communal meal with the garnishes on the side or you can separate the noodles into the bowls and top it with the garnishes.
Now garnishing your sōmen is all up to you. If you don’t want any garnishes, you’re free to eat the noodles with just the tsuyu. The typical garnishes are simple, some sesame seeds, ground ginger, and welsh onions, but I do enjoy having some eggs, cucumber and ham on mine. It adds a little more color to the dish. I recently tried zucchini in my sōmen and it wasn’t half bad. Have some fun with it, try out some flavor combinations! The great thing about sōmen is that it seems to go with just about anything, the perfect culinary canvas!
~ どうぞめしあがれ • Douzo Meshiagare ~
Special thanks again to Fae for having me guest post, I had a complete blast! Hope to see some of you readers on my own blog. Until then, hugs and puppies! Mimi
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What a lovely guest post this was & is & what a lovely tasty sounding & looking dish! Yum Yum Yum!
Welcome to Mimi -fabulous post! NY is miserable and hot (at least I’m miserable and hot) and refreshing cold noodles sounds AWESOME! Great recipe
What a nice guest post! Sōmen looks really tasty!
the noodles are smaller than Ramen ones, but this Somen looks very tasty
What a beautiful yummy looking dish! Thank you for introducing us to Mimi
I love somen but have yet to have it cold. Cannot wait to give this a try! Congratulations on your excellent guest post Mimi!
What a fabulous post & what a splendid young woman. Not to mention delicious recipe!
Thank you so much!
I’m so glad that you enjoyed it
Great guest post!
Thank you! It was my first so I was a little nervous
So nice to meet Mimi and I love her recipe. I live in NYC also and it’s so hot here, this is the perfect meal. Very nice to meet you Mimi!
I agree! And with the current humidity? I feel like it hits the spot!
Cold somen in bonito broth is truly wonderful in the hot summer! I find in summer it is always tempting to eat a lot of fruit and ices and not so much hearty food and eventually you get so you really need something more substantial that is still light–like this somen dish.
I completely agree! While it’s great to cool off with ice creams and cold fruits, I do think that it’s hard to find substantial meals that are appetizing during the summer. Luckily, somen goes with just about anything so you can sneak in lots of veggies
Reblogged this on Les Saveurs De Mimi and commented:
Hey everyone!
Check out my guest blog post at Fae Magazine!
http://fae-magazine.com/