Cold Soba Noodles = easy and delicious

When I was in Japan I ate a ton of these. I only recently realized how easy they are to make. The important thing is to get the soup base and other accoutrements.. the noodles on their own are kind of boring. The items you could leave out are the dried seaweed (that WOULD be on top of the noodles if I had it in the house) and wasabi (the green spicy paste you get with sushi). So, let's get to it!

Cold Soba Noodles
3-servings

• 4 oz dried soba noodles. These are thin, brown noodles made from buckwheat.


• About 1/3 cup per person of bottled soba noodle soup base(or you can make this on your own but I swear you don't need to.)


• 2 scallions


• optional: wasabi


• optional: Nori (dried seaweed) for garnish

1. There are some special ways of cooking soba. Some recipes say you should keep putting cold water into the boiling water as it cooks. I haven't found this to add any particular benefit. I think the most important thing is to keep your eye on the noodles and don't cook them too long (5 minutes is plenty). They should be al dente. So, boil some water, cook the noodles, then run them under cold water in a colander.


2. Pour the 1/3 cup of the soup broth in a little bowl for each person.


3. Cut up about 1/2 scallion and squeeze a little bit of wasabi out for each person.


4. Serve the cold noodles sprinkled with seaweed, if you have it.


5. How to eat: mix scallions and wasabi to taste in your bowl of broth. Grab each bit of noodles with your chop sticks, dip and swirl in the broth, then eat.