Hiyashi chūka

Noodles washed in iced water and dressed in a sharp cold sauce, with toppings in stripes.

Pork, Fish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish, pork.

Ingredients

the sauce

• 60 ml rice vinegar
• 60 ml soy sauce
• 30 g caster sugar
• 100 ml dashi, cold
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

the bowl

• 400 g fresh ramen noodles
• 2 eggs, for kinshi tamago
• 150 g ham, in strips
• 1 cucumber, in matchsticks
• 2 tomatoes, in wedges
• 100 g beansprouts, blanched
• karashi mustard, to serve

Method

1. WASHED IN ICED WATER AND RUBBED, which is not the same as rinsing. Boiled noodles carry surface starch that turns a cold sauce cloudy and claggy. Rub them between the hands under running cold water, then plunge them into iced water for a minute.
2. DRAIN THEM VERY HARD afterwards -- shake the colander repeatedly and press them. A tablespoon of water left behind dilutes the sauce to nothing, and this sauce is thin to begin with.
3. Boil the noodles 30 seconds LESS than the packet says. They firm slightly in the cold water and should have real bite.
4. Sauce: everything whisked cold until the sugar dissolves, then chilled. Sesame oil last -- whisked in early it emulsifies and goes cloudy.
5. IT SHOULD TASTE TOO SHARP ON A SPOON. Cold dulls acidity and the noodles dilute it; a sauce balanced in the jug is flat in the bowl.
6. Kinshi tamago: thin omelettes, cooled, rolled and shredded to fine threads. Cut while warm they tear.
7. Chill the bowls.
8. ARRANGED IN STRIPES, each topping in its own band radiating from the centre, not tossed through. The look is half the dish and tossing it makes a noodle salad.
9. Sauce poured over at the table so the noodles do not sit in it.
10. Karashi on the rim. Eat cold, and do not assemble it more than ten minutes ahead.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes