Hiyashi Soba

Hello!

Do you know what is Hiyashi Soba (冷やし中華）?

My boyfriend has been crazy about soba ever since when our March trip to Japan neared, and his obsession lasts until now!

He came to my house yesterday with a pack of Uji green tea soba noodles (which smelled so good when cooked!), and his trusty bottle of soba sauce and tube of wasabi.

He was always making the most basic of Hiyashi Soba, which looks like this:

Source

Except his Hiyashi Soba is really plain...just soba and the dipping sauce and wasabi. Hahaha!

The other day I was surfing the net and chanced upon Soba Salad. That recipe was very much like Pasta Salad, but instead of pasta, the author used soba noodles! I couldn't find that recipe after that, but the image of vegetables and soba noodles stayed in my head, and I wanted to make it!

So we prepared some ingredients and we started to make what I thought was Hiyashi Soba. -___-" Actually, I was confused, because I was thinking Salad Soba at the same time.

Ingredients (2 servings):

- 2 carrots

- 1 Japanese cucumber

- 10 sticks of crab meat (imitation is fine too)

- 1 stalk negi (spring onions)

- 2 eggs

- pinch of sugar and salt

- 2 teaspoon oil

- 1 pack of soba noodles

- some nori (seaweed) strips for topping

- wasabi (optional)

Sauce (recipe from here)

- 2 tablespoons soy sauce

- 4 tablespoons vinegar

- 1 tablespoon sesame oil

- 1 teaspoon sugar

- 2 teaspoon ginger powder

1) Wash all your vegetables thoroughly. Peel off the skin of the carrots with a peeler. Cut away the head and roots of the carrots, cucumber and negi. Slice all the carrots, cucumber and crab meat. Chop the spring onion into tiny pieces.

The thinner you can slice them, the better the sweetness, crunch and ease of eating them later.

2) Put some salt on the carrots and cucumber to dry them a bit. Set them aside. 

3) Crack your eggs. Season with salt and sugar. Beat until fluffy.

4) Heat up the oil in your frying pan. Pour the egg mixture in when you hear your the oil sizzling in your pan. 

Turn your heat to medium-low. Leave your omelette like this for about 2 minutes. If you have no idea how to flip your omelette, it's alright. Just leave it like this. It will be cooked soon enough. Turn off the heat. 

5) Slice your omelette. 

6) Make the sauce by combining all the ingredients for the sauce. Transfer half of the sauce into another bowl. Put the sliced cucumbers in one bowl, and the sliced carrots in another.

7) Fill a large pot with half a pot of water. Boil your water in a large pot over high heat. When you see bubbles, it means that the water is boiling. Put in your soba noodles and let it cook for about 4 minutes.

8) When 4 minutes is up, drain your noodles over a large colander over a sink. Be careful of the hot water!! Don't burn yourself!

9) Run your soba noodles under cold water. If your water is not cold enough, you can put in some ice cubes over your soba noodles.

The noodles will have a springy texture to the bite. ^^

10) Take out the carrots and cucumbers from the sauce. Transfer your sauce to 2 dining dishes. Put half of the soba into each dish. Mix your noodles thoroughly with the sauce.

11) Top with all the toppings you have prepared, including the nori strips. 

Here is my confused version of Hiyashi Soba. 

It ended up looking like Bibambap or Hiyashi Chuka. 

This is how（冷やし中華）Hiyashi Chuka looks like:

Source

I asked my Japanese friend, Junko, the difference between Hiyashi Soba and Hiyashi Chuka.

Firstly, Hiyashi Chuka uses egg noodles, and secondly, the sauce used is sesame sauce. I suddenly recalled the taste of Hiyashi Chuka after hearing both of these ingredients. I only tried it once so many years ago, and it was really delicious. I should attempt to create an authentic Hiyashi Chuka next time! T^T

Here's my boyfriend's version of Hiyashi Soba.

His version is so much more popular than mine for some reason. I put both of our soba dishes on Facebook, and more friends preferred his!

Anyway, you can tell that it's a man's version of soba with all the crab meat and egg. All the lovely vegetables are hidden underneath! -___-"

I must say that when he came to the dining table with his version, I was shocked!!! His looked so colourful and enticing! 

Well, we really enjoyed our soba noodles. My mum loved it too. The sauce recipe which I found at Vegetable Gohan was so delicious. It really felt like we were eating at a Japanese Soba House. ^^

This recipe is not difficult to make. It's just a lot of slicing work. Please try it on a hot summer day. The coolness of all the ingredients and the sauce makes it a refreshing and comfortable meal. 

If you like Happy Girls Cute Food's recipes, join us on Facebook for even more fun and more delicious recipes ~! New updates everyday over there!

UPDATE!

Some readers have feedbacked that it'll be better if I can tell them where to buy the ingredients and what brands of ingredients I recommend. From my next post onwards, I will do a little section telling you where you can find the ingredients, or any substitutes you can use.

I live in Singapore, so for now, I can only let people living in Singapore know where to get the ingredients...

1. Soba noodles

Nissin brand. My boyfriend bought this and I forgot the price. I believe it's less than S$6 for a pack. You can find it easily in Cold Storage. Try Takashimaya's Cold Storage. I believe you can find similar soba in Liang Court's Meidi-ya and Isetan Supermarket in Orchard.

2. Soy sauce

It'll be so much nicer if you can buy actual soba sauce. It looks like this:

You can find soba sauce in the above mentioned supermarkets too.

3. Negi (spring onions)

This is how spring onions look like. It will cost less about S$1 for this bunch. This is the easiest to find. You can find it in your market and all supermarkets. Look for that purple bulb down there! Don't mistake chives for negi! 

4. Ginger powder

I'm using MasterFoods Ginger Ground Powder. You can find this easily in the spices and seasoning section in Cold Storage. Ginger powder is actually optional in this recipe, so if you can't find it, or you find this too expensive, you can skip it. You can add chilli powder if you still want that spicy taste. Otherwise, just skip it.