Japanese Somen (Soumen) Noodles - Cold Dish

5:27:00 PM cc 0 Comments

I've heard about this dish for awhile, but I never seen it in Japanese restaurants so I couldn't try it. Somen is known to be a summer dish since it is normally chilled. The noodles are a white wheat thin noodles that you dip in a mentsuyu (dashi soy sauce) sauce. It seems you can add a variety of toppings to go with the noodles.

You can find Somen noodles in asian supermarkets, but it may not be there in the asian sections of your normal western supermarket. The noodles do have a variety of package sizes and brands to choose from. They also can be pricey compare to pasta. The cheapest one I got was about $2 and its made in Korea. I like how its has one serving of noodles already wrapped in a paper band so there's 4 servings in one bag. Cooking somen noodles is fast too. Just boil for 3 minutes and rinse with cold water then chilled it in ice water. I skipped the ice bath and just ate the noodles just cooled or room temperature. The noodles already have a bit of oil in them so they will not stick and clump together. I topped it with eggs, grated ginger, and chopped scallions.

For the dipping sauce, there's quite a few different variations from different regions of Japan. I just used the most easily accessible recipe with just mirin, soy sauce, and dashi stock. I used the powdered dashi stock and measured 100mL of it. I soft boil 2 tablespoons or 25ml of mirin in a pot. Then I add the same amount with the soy sauce and then add 100ml of dashi stock. Bring that to a boil then stop the heat. You can let it cool before serving or refrigerate it. This stuff taste pretty salty if you try it by itself, but you can adjust it with water or dashi stock to your liking. The sauce is suppose to be quite salty so this is normal. Once you dip the noodles in it will flavor the dish well enough. There are somen dipping sauce that you can buy already made, but making it is pretty easy since I have all the ingredients.

Overall, this dish is delicious! Its relatively inexpensive and fast to make. I really like the taste of the noodles and how thin they are. Definitely already one of my favorite types of noodles. Definitely recommend giving it a try.