July 30, 2012

Supper on July 29/7月29日の夕飯

For supper last night, we had cold noodles and tempura.
I combined dashi, soy sauce, and mirin at a ratio of 4:1:1, and used it both as mentsuyu (dipping sauce for noodles) and tentsuyu (dipping sauce for tempura).
昨日の夕飯には麺と天ぷらを食べました。
出汁、しょう油、みりんを4:1:1で混ぜ、それを麺つゆと天つゆとして使いました。


Note that different ratios may be used for these two dipping sauces.  For example, one person suggests a 3.5:1:1 ratio for mentsuyu and a 4:1:1 ratio for tentsuyu.  Another suggests a 7:1:1 ratio for mentsuyu and a 5:1:1 ratio for tentsuyu.
It's summer and hot, so I added some ice cubes to the mentsuyu bowl.
この二種類の「つゆ」に別々の割合を使うこともあります。例えば、或る人は麺つゆには3.5:1:1の割合、天つゆには4:1:1の割合を薦めていますし、別の人は麺つゆには7:1:1の割合、天つゆには5:1:1の割合を薦めています。
夏で暑いので、麺つゆのお椀には氷を少し入れました。

Cold udon noodles:
うどん:


Somen and hiyamugi are noodles of choice in the summer, but this time, we had to use up the udon noodles that were past their expiration date.
夏は麺と言ったら、素麺(そうめん)か冷麦ですが、今回は、賞味期限切れのうどんを食べました。

We also had to use up the kabocha (not a bocchan kabocha) my father had sent us.
また、父が送ってくれたかぼちゃ(ぼっちゃんかぼちゃではない)も使い切りました。


Many of the pieces were eaten by three of us (my children and me) before supper time, as you can see from the empty space on one of the plates.

I also made satsuma imo tempura (imoten for short).
サツマイモの天ぷら(略して「いも天」)も作りました。


Shown on the right is a bowl of tenkasu (also called agedama) that I made with leftover tempura batter intentionally, not as a byproduct of tempura making.
右に見えるのは、残った天ぷらの衣で意図的に(天ぷら作りの副産物ではなく)作った天カス(揚げ玉とも)です。

4 comments:

Fräulein Trude said...

Ice cubes are a good idea! The fried pumpkin was very delicious but I would also recommend green beans. It was the first time I made them Tempura style and they were surprisingly uebertasty even without dipping sauce. I ate them all - almost - after frying (laugh). So I know what you did looking at the plate cleared to the half.

Hiroyuki said...

Kiki: Putting ice cubes is what I do when I don't have to the time to chill mentsuyu in the fridge (or when I don't have enough space in the fridge).

Thanks for the suggestion. I can imagine that green bean tempura will be very good. I will make it when I'm lucky to have some green beans from someone.

muskratbyte said...

I see you are eating chilled noodles too! After having dongchimi guksu at a Korean restaurant, I decided to make it using this recipe: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/dongchimiguksu . I used store bought water kimchi. It was very refreshing and delicious!

My mother wanted me to ask you a question. My grandmother (who was from Sapporo) used to make a cold noodle dish, similar to yours. But, she used chicken gizzards to make the broth, which makes sense since there wouldn't be a great deal of fat to coagulate when it is cold. Have you heard of this before?

Hiroyuki said...

muskratbyte: Thanks for the link. I have never had this particular dish, but a Korean cold noodle dish, reimen 冷麺 in Japanese, is quite popular in Japan.

Using chicken gizzards to make broth is intriguing, but I have never heard of such a recipe.

I did some googling and found one blog:

http://umaimonotabetai.blog46.fc2.com/blog-entry-433.html

The blogger, who seems to live in Hokkaido, made a hot udon noodle dish, using chicken gizzards, called suna gimo 砂肝 or suna bukuro 砂袋 in Japanese, for broth.

She says you can get a considerable amount of dashi from gizzards.