It’s getting a little too hot to eat warm food. Fortunately, these sesame-coated noodles are cold and refreshing. This preparation is vaguely Japanese-inspired, due to the wakame and soy sauce, but with a local twist of tahini. To the best of my knowledge, you can’t readily find tahini in Japan, because if you can, I’m not sure why our friends there asked us to bring a kilo of it with us when we came to visit.
I get good-quality egg noodles from East & West, and they come in units that resemble a hardened bird’s nest (see the photo). I used one such chunk in the following recipe. You can use any kind of noodles you like, though.
For 2 servings:
120 grams dry egg noodles (or another noodle of your choice)
100 grams tofu
100 grams cucumber
2 tablespoons dry wakame
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Optional toppings: spring onions, chives, sesame seeds
Drop the noodles into a pot of boiling water.
Meanwhile, mix the tahini, soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar in a small bowl. Chop the tofu into tiny cubes, and slice the cucumbers into short, thin strips.
Once the noodles are almost at the desired softness, drop the tofu and the wakame into the pot with the noodles, and let boil for another minute.
Empty the contents of the pot into a strainer, and rinse with cold water to cool. Toss with the sauce the cucumbers. Top with toppings of your choice.
