Cha-soba To Go

August 6th, 2008 Posted in Cooking ideas, Dishes

I can clearly remember the first time I had cha-soba (green tea buckwheat noodles). It was a sultry day in Kyoto, and I was thrilled to EAT green tea. They were served icy cold in the zaru-soba style: the noodles are cooked and chilled, and then presented on a zaru, or rollable bamboo mat, with a sprinkling of nori (toasted seaweed), a small mound of wasabi. You then dip the noodles in tsuyu, a blend of soy sauce, dashi, and mirin, and slurp them up. Heavenly when the humidity starts to make you feel like you want to wring out your entire body like a towel. But unless you want to use bottled industrial tsuyu — not horrible but not great either — it’s not exactly a last-minute, throw-together dish, by the time you’ve shaved the bonito, made the dashi, and all the rest.

Still, the green, slightly chewy (if cooked correctly), grassy-tasting noodles beckon. I recently had some good organic cauliflower, fresh English peas, and shallots, so I decided to saute those together with some fruity green olive oil and umami salt while the cha-soba cooked. When both the noodles and the veggies were cooked, I chilled the noodles with ice water, drained, and folded in the veggies, along with a quickly made dressing of olive oil, greek yogurt, and some picked ginger/raspberry vinegar brine. Topped with a good dusting of finely minced Thai basil, packed it into a tupperware, and brought it to the ballpark for a simulcast opera performance, along with a bottle of rose, some leftover roasted chicken, and chopsticks. An excellent evening, and great picnic food! Not a bad choice for the next picnic, hike, or other summery outdoor event.

Anyone else a cha-soba fan? They’re available at Nijiya and other Japanese markets, and are also easily found online.

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  1. 10 Responses to “Cha-soba To Go”

  2. By Karena on Aug 6, 2008

    I luuuurve cha-soba! On the three days a year that San Francisco breaks 90 degrees, I live off of chilled cha-soba mixed with soy sauce, shredded nori, and sesame. Sunset Super on Irving carries it for about $4 a package.

    Can I also ask how you came up with the dressing? I never would have thought to mix Greek yogurt, olive oil, pickled ginger brine together (and be confident that it would taste good).

  3. By Victor Ortiz on Aug 6, 2008

    Now you have done it! I spent three weeks in Japan, this summer. In that heat, soba was sugoi! But, I never had cha soba. Now, I have to go back; even if Nijiya has it on hand. It is the principle of the thing.

    Now, I got that out of my system, your idea with the dressing sounds great. August might well be accented by cha-soba. Cool, tasty, refreshing, and easy on the GI system.

    Thanks for the ideas, now I need to make a trip to Torrance.

  4. By Eric on Aug 6, 2008

    Karena — the dressing was born the usual way: I was just staring at what was in front of me. This was years ago though: greek yogurt has been my go-to ingredient for salad dressing for eons; it really binds things well, adds a touch of creaminess yet keeps it light. The pickled ginger “brine” is really just slightly sweetened (with honey) raspberry ginger infused with the flavor of ginger. It’s unbelievably tasty. This is reason alone to make your own pickled ginger: the uses for it are endless.

  5. By Eric on Aug 6, 2008

    Yes Victor, you indeed must drop what you’re doing and march back over there to get some cha-soba!

    Another killer use for cha-soba: bottarga (dried mullet roe, which sounds god-awful, but is in fact one of the most umami-laden foods in existence), just microplaned on, perhaps with a simple dressing.

  6. By Em on Aug 6, 2008

    What a fancy bento!
    Yeah, I can’t quite imagine the taste since there are so many flavor elements in the dressing. I’m also curious to know how you came up with it.

    I’ve had zaru style cha-soba a few times in Japan. It’s so simple, yet has elegant flavor I think.

  7. By Tori on Aug 7, 2008

    I’ve been yearning for bottarga for weeks!!

    Soba always strikes me as goddess food, cha-soba all the more. I can’t completely explain it, but I always find eating it a pure, yet edifying, experience.

  8. By Eric on Aug 7, 2008

    Thanks Em — you know, it sounds like there are a lot of flavors going on, but not really. It’s just simply sauted veggies plus a simply dressed cha-soba (my dressing might sound fancy, but it really isn’t — it’s just a good, tangy dressing). I came up with it in the same way I come up with everything: all those ingredients were what I had on hand!

    And hello toriiiii! Goddess food indeed — we’ve got to get you more into matcha.

  9. By Rowan on Mar 5, 2009

    I knw I’m lat to writing this, but I’ve been loving the seies of breakaway recipes I’ve foudn recently, I’ve gone so far as to take my food technology course from Japanese to breakaway Japnese, borrowing fromy our recipes and making my own changes too. this dish reminds me of 3 or 4 years ago when i was lucky enough to visit Japan as well as celebrate my birthday there. I’d been walking around tokyo the entire day and looking papadum with nori topping served as a “vegetarian pizza” had only made me and my father more hungry than before. Returning to the apartment of a friend we were staying with I was lucky enough to get to try Cha-soba for the first time then, and since then I’ve been interested in using maccha as much as possible in anything i can. THis is another great recipe I’d like to try, O-cha biscotti having a nice flavour and depth to it, but still not quite living up to the itialian versions.

  10. By Eric on Mar 5, 2009

    Go Rowan! I hereby officially incorporate the phrase, “looking papadum” into my lexicon.

  11. By Rowan on Mar 5, 2009

    Sorry that was meant to be “suspicious looking papadum” ,but it’s servicable.

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