About the Recipe
This Japanese cold soba dish - Zaru soba - is. named after the weaved bamboo plate on which the soba noodles are traditionally served. Zaru in Japanese means "sieve" and when this dish is served in a restaurant, the weaved bamboo allows water to drain away from the noodles as they are eaten.
Ingredients
4 portions dried soba noodles
3 spring onions
8 shiso / oba leaves
1.5 sheets of nori, finely shredded
for the dipping sauce:
600 ml water
2 tsp japanese stock granules
1.5 tbsp sugar
2 tsp japanese rice vinegar
1.5 tbsp japanese cooking sake
6 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
Preparation
to make the soba, bring plenty of water to the boil in a large saucepan
put the soba into the pan and cook for 5 minutes or according to the instructions on the packet
(soba shouldn't be boiled, so during cooking, if the water comes back to the boil, add a cup of cold water to bring the pan off the boil and adjust the heat to keep the water just below boiling point)
when the soba is cooked, drain it through a colander and rinse it well under cold running water
to make the dipping sauce:
put the the dashi, rice vinegar, sake, mirin, sugar and soy sauce into a small pan with 600ml of water. bring to the boil and simmer for 3-4 minutes
finely shred the shiso and chop the spring onion
your dish is now ready to serve
when you eat your noodles, add a little of each shiso, spring onion and nori into the dipping sauce, then add the soba using chopsticks. don't be shy. you are supposed to slurp up the noodles as you eat