Here you can enjoy chilled black wheat noodles served with wasabi, spring greens and a soya broth. If you look at this dish it is just cold boiled noodles! But with a refined palate you can slowly trace all the emerging tastes. In normal temperature, the aroma easily comes to the fore as the heat stimulates different glands and molecules in your mouth. With cold food it’s harder to get those different tastes. But it is very interesting how Japanese cold food has those aromas. If you want to really get those subtle tastes, you can even try drinking some green tea first. That helps to clean the palate, allowing the tastes and textures to come out.
Zora Soba on Ice
120 gms cooked cold soba noodles
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10 gms wasabi paste
10 ml wasabi oil (for drizzling in top of soba)
5 gms chopped spring onion
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3 gms seaweed
25 gms cucumber sticks
15 gms tanuki (tempura crispies)
15 gms carrot
15 gms takwan (pickled radish)
2 to 3 gms noori (in strips)
50 gms tempura flour
Oil Crushed ice
Zaru soba sauce
Ingredients
450 ml water
100 ml dark soya
100 ml mirin (sugar as substitute)
Method for sauce
Boil the water and add the rest of the ingredients. Once it boils switch off the flame and allow to chill.
Method for zora soba
Boil the noodles in hot water for three to four minutes and put in cold water to stop cooking. Arrange the other ingredients around the soba and put wasabi oil on top of soba. Chop the spring onion and cut cucumber into matchstick size. Make the tempura batter with tempura flour and ice water. Make tanuki (crispies), in hot oil.
Arrange ice on the platter and put the soba on it and the ingredients around it.
Saby, Executive Chef at Ai, is known for being a true professional. He gives his chefs names of Japanese fruits, vegetables and ingredients, to familiarise them with Japanese names and pronunciation.