Chris Perrius, who has traveled and worked in Japan, offers his recipe for a quick and easy Japanese dish that takes advantage of simple ingredients and a bottled sauce you can pick up at most Asian markets. You can make the dish even easier by omitting the tempura and just serving the cold noodles with sauce.
Soba:
1 package buckwheat soba
Memmi noodle soup base (you can find bottles of Memmi usually near the soy sauce in the Asian section of grocery stores or in Asian markets)
nori seaweed sheets (2)
2 green onions
wasabi to taste
Tempura:
1 bunch broccoli chopped in large chunks
tempura batter
1/4 cup peanut oil
A note about serving and eating: Zaru soba is served cold with a cold dipping sauce, and hot tempura-fried broccoli on the side. You remove a mouthful of the soba from its bowl with chopsticks (or fork), about the amount you'd eat at once if it were spaghetti, place it in the dipping sauce bowl, swirl it around, and bring it to your mouth from the dipping bowl. Mild slurping is encouraged. The broccoli tempura is delicious, crunchy exterior around a slightly softened interior - this is also dipped in the dipping sauce before eating.
To make the soba: Bring a full pot of water to boil. Put 1 1/2 bundles of soba into boiling water (if soba doesn't come in bundles, put in a handful as thick as the OK circle you make with your thumb and forefinger for each serving). Stir the soba around in the water to prevent clumping. Have a glass of cold water handy and when the soba water starts to boil over, pour in a splash of water to bring the boil back down. After three boils and splashes, it will be ready (approximately 5 minutes). When the soba is done cooking, drain in a colander and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Divide into serving bowls. Serve with bowl of nori strips.
To make the dipping sauce: While the soba cooks, prepare the dipping sauce according to the proportions on the bottle - I like to make it about twice as strong as they recommend. Also prepare the nori seaweed sheets by cutting them into 1/2 x 2 inch strips with a scissor.
To make the tempura: Use a tempura mix from a box. Prepare the batter by mixing with water as instructed on the box. Do not mix too thoroughly, it should be lumpy. Heat peanut oil, and test with a bit of batter. Add two pieces of batter-dipped broccoli to oil when test batter sizzles. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. Don't overload the pan of hot oil or the temperature will drop too much, cook only two at a time. Tempura should be white color just a touch of browning.
When tempura is done, serve with soba and meal is ready.
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