Soba Noodles

I haven't done a recipe on Fridays for a while and I think it's about time to do another one.  Honestly I haven't been doing a lot of cooking these day because of the never ending heat.  Who wants to turn on the oven/stove when it's 100 degrees outside?  No one.  But, I'm back in the kitchen baby and ready to cook!

Today I have some super yummy Soba Noodles with a sweet and spicy sauce.  This recipe is awesome.  It's the perfect blend of spicy and sweet, with a hint of smoky.  My mouth is watering just thinking about them.  They were delicious.

First I gathered up my ingredients. Here are some of the soy sauces we have. Just a regular one and one that is mushroom flavored.  Num, num.  We get most of our Asian foods from the, surprise surprise, the Asian market up the street.  It's mainly a Vietnamese store, but they carry stuff from all Asian cultures.

A side note, if you're looking to save money, you should definitely check out your local ethnic markets.  They usually carry a lot of the things you get at the grocery store for a lot less.  We stopped in last night and paid under $20 for a whole bag of food.  And don't just stick to Asian markets, check out Latino and Italian markets as well as a local butcher (we have all of these right by our house).

But back the the recipe.

All your sauce ingredients will go into a bowl so that they can interact with each other creating an amazing taste.  Look at how yummy that looks already.  I made the sauce before we ran to the grocery store, and when we came back, the whole house smelled delicious.

These are Soba noodles. You can pick these up in a lot of grocery stores. They will be in the Asian foods isle. If you can't find them in your normal grocery store, go try you're local Asian grocery store, they will have them. They are a noodle that is made with buckwheat flower, which is what gives them their brown color.  Soba actually means buckwheat in Japanese.  If you go to Japan, they have a few places where you can still get soba noodles made from scratch.  Yum. 

I sauteed some portabella mushrooms.  I know, not very Asian, but we love mushrooms and this is what we had.  I have also used shitaki and button mushrooms.  That's the great thing about cooking, you can use what every you like and/or whatever you have on hand.  It can be personalized to you.

While I was cooking the mushrooms I was also boiling some water for the soba. See, the pot is on TURBO BOIL.  I usually use my large pot with the noodle insert thing.  The soba seem to take up a lot more room once they are cooked then a wheat flour noodle, so even if I'm making a small amount, I still use the big pot.
Then once you're noodles are done cooking and your mushrooms are slightly sauteed (soft, but not completely grilled), you mix everything together and you have this......

Oh yeah, look at that.  I garnished with some raw carrot, cucumber, black sesame seeds, garlic chili paste, and some green onions.  It was amazing.  I love the spice of the noodles then the cooling sensation the cucumber gives you.  Amazing.

And yes, those are light saber chop sticks.  I never said we weren't nerds.  We have quite the chop stick collection, but these are our favorites.  J has the Luke Skywalker's and I have Mace Windu's.  You can pick them up at ThinkGeek.com if you're interested.

Soba Noodles with Mushrooms in a sweet and spicy sauce
Based on recipe from Simply Reem
  
Ingredients

• Sauce 
• 2 chopped green onions
• 1 tsp minced ginger - fresh ginger goes a long way, but you can add more if you'd like
• 1/4 c chopped cilantro - I was out of fresh so I used fresh dried cilantro, fresh is better though
• hot peppers - I used a few small hot peppers from the garden, but you can use any kind you want - add to taste
• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 3 tsp garlic chili sauce - more or less to taste
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs rice wine vinegar 
• 2 tbs honey
• salt and pepper to taste
• Pasta
• soba noodles
• sesame seeds for garnish
• julienned carrot for garnish
• julienned cucumber for garnish
• green onion for garnish

Directions

1. Mix all of your sauce ingredients together and let them sit while you prepare everything else
2. Boil a large pot of water
3. Cut up the mushrooms in thicker slices and saute until they just start to release their juices
4. Once your water is boiling, add your soba noodles.  The cook pretty fast, so you should watch them.  The package I had said it would take 6-7 minutes to cook, but they were done in about 4.  
5. Drain the noodles
6. Mix your mushrooms into the noodles
7. Add your sauce and mix everything.
8. Add your julienned cucumber and carrot.  Sprinkle with your sesame seeds and add a little green onion and chili sauce if you would like.  
9. Enjoy

This can also be eaten cold.  If you want it as a cold noodle dish, rinse the noodles with cold water after they are done cooking.

Remember when cooking noodles, that they continue to cook once you take them out of the water.  To prevent mushy noodles, take them out of the water while they are a little bit undercooked.  That way you'll never have a mushy noodle or sticky noodles that form one large lump.

This recipe would be good with snow peas, tofu, chicken, or beef added.  Play around with it and add what you like to it.  The next time I make it, I'm going to try lo mein noodles.   

Now lets see what you guys come up with.  Have a fantastic weekend and always stay creative.