Ramen. Summer style

By default the hot summer days tend to suppress cravings for warm, soft, and usually heavy comfort food. The warmth of the air takes the role of comforting, freeing food from its responsibility and opening the door for experimental attempts, like preparing ‘Hiyashi-chuka', a cold ramen noodle from scratch (Including jumping on the dough for 15 minutes to form the gluten that gives the dough and thus the noodles, elasticity). 

Such an endeavor took most of the morning and early afternoon, during which people came and left, bottles of prosecco were emptied, and the sound of empty stomachs was getting louder.

Alas, when ready the plate was a technicolor  display of cold ramen noodles, stacked with thin slices of tamagoyaki (a Japanese omelet), shitake mushrooms, poached chicken, carrots, cucumbers, sprouts, lettuce, cured meat and ginger, all of which echoed the noodle form. A dressing of sesame, soy, miso- esque sauce helped to wash it all down in a steady rhythmic motion . Why, it was like summer in a bowl.

Dessert, in keeping with the theme, was strawberry Daifuku Mochi. Mildly sweet, the Daifuku is a strawberry coated in Azuki (red bean paste), and glutinous rice dough capturing within it a pleasing stickiness, a gentle sweetness and a balancing tartness, all of which benefit from the pairing of a whipped cream and a pot of green tea.

We thought 1 each would be more then enough. 

We finished the entire plate. 

A Saturday has gone by.