This dish is more of a know-how than a recipe, because it is that simple to make.

It was an unusually hot spring day that reached 25 degrees outside. I decided to make cold soba noodles – a typical Japanese Summer dish. Incidentally, it was taught to me by a French friend who had lived in Japan for some time.

Soba is a kind of Japanese noodles made of buckwheat. Traditionally served on a bamboo tray with ice, I am using a bowl here for the lack of proper material.

Ingredients:

  • 1 bunch of dried soba
  • 1 bottle of soba tsuyu (you can get this in a Japanese grocery store – otherwise mix some dashi, sweetened soy sauce and mirin together)
  • 1 bunch of spring onions
  • Half a sheet of nori seaweed, cut into tiny strips of 5mm x 30mm
  • ¼ of a daikon radish
  • Ice cubes

Steps:

Noodles

  1. Boil a pot of water, cook your soba in it. Once cooked, take out and drain.
  2. If you have a zaru, use it. Otherwise use a bowl, lay your ice cubes in it. Place your noodles on top on the ice cubes.
  3. Sprinkle with your strips of nori seaweed.

Dip sauce

  1. Pour your soba tsuyu into a small rice bowl. Chop your spring onion into rings of 5mm wide and sprinkle them into the sauce.

Topping

  1. Grate your daikon radish and serve it on a very small plate.

How to eat your Hiyashi soba:

  1. With your chopsticks, get a bite-size amount of noodles and place it into your tsuyu dip sauce.
  2. With your chopsticks, place a small amount of grated daikon radish and place it on your noodles now in the dipsauce bowl.
  3. Raise the dip sauce bowl to your mouth level and using your chopsticks, deliver the noodles and the radish topping into your mouth! Try to eat it with the elegance of a geisha.