Somen noodles with veggies and salmon

Going back to good habits and to my interest for Japanese cuisine, today I bring you a very complete recipe, that returns dead to life.

In case anyone doesn’t know it yet, somen noodles are a very thin wheat flour pasta that is used in Japanese cuisine. They have less diameter than tradicional spaguetti -less than 1.3m in diameter- and their color is more whitish. Those that are a bit thicker are called hiyamugi. And if they are thick-thick, we are talking about udon. While in summer they are normally served cold, with a light flavored dipping sauce, in winter they are served in hot soup (nyumen).

Until here everything fine… information and basic knowledge. The most interesting and curious is that in some restaurants they are served hanging in a long bamboo stick, and you have to take them from there with the chopsticks, soak them in the soup and eat them. My skills are not even enough to take them from my own bowl, but as almost everything in this life, it might be a mater of interest and practice, so let’s go to it!

Ingredients for 2 people

100gr of somen noodles

2 steaks of fresh salmon

2 carrots

4 dehydrated shitake mushrooms

6 scallions

4 tablespoons of soy sauce

2 tablespoon of mirin

2 teaspoons of brown sugar

2 teaspoons of fresh grinded ginger

2 tablespoons of sesame oil

1 tablespoon of warm water

Directions

Cut salmon in aprox. 2cm x 1 cm x 5 cm sticks. Mix soy sauce, mirin, grinded ginger, tablespoon of water and sugar, and marinate salmon in a glass or plastic bowl with lid, for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

Peel and chop carrots diagonally in little sticks. Hydrate mushrooms for about 15 minutes in warm water, and chop also scallions diagonally. When mushrooms are hydrated, drain them by pressing them with your hands, and chop them longitudinally in stripes. Reserve these three ingredients.

Boil water in a saucepan where somen noodles fit, and boil them for 4-5 minutes, according to manufacturer’s instructions. Take them out from boiling water, wash them with cold water and drain them in a strainer.

Heat 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a pan, add salmon sticks when it is hot, and reserve marinade. Fry them for 3-4 minutes each side until they are cooked.

Meanwhile salmon is being cooked, heat another tablespoon of sesame oil in a big pan or wok, and add carrots, scallions and shitake mushrooms. Reduce to medium heat and add the marinade that you reserved. Cover it with a lid and cook it, stirring it from time to time, for around 3 minutes. Add somen noodles and mix it carefully so that they do not break, until vegetables are spread homogeneously.

Serve this mixture of noodles and vegetables, and add salmon sticks on top. Sprinkle with chopped coriander.

To be considered

You can substitute salmon with tuna, also great!

Tags: chive, ginger, mirin, salmon, soy sauce, carrot