Cold soba with dipping sauce

 Now that is has become July, the weather is getting warmer and warmer in Toyko. We have therefore come to love to eating cold meals, to cool down a little bit from the heat outside. With the more warmer periods yet to come, we expect to grow even more fond of these Japanese cold meals.
This time we want to share a favorite meal of us: cold soba. Soba noodles are buckwheat noodles, and can be eaten both cold and warm. Because we enjoy eating cold soba so much, we searched on the internet to find the recipe for the Japanese cold dipping sauce (Kaeshi) that is normally served with cold soba. Turned out: it is very easy to make and very tasty!
 
Making the dipping sauce (Kaeshi)

Ingredients (makes several portions, can be stored in refrigerator)

• 2 cups soja
• 1/3 cup mirin
• 1/4 cup sugar

 Put the 1/3 cup mirin in a pan, and bring to boil. Lower the temperature, so it can simmer for a little bit. Then add the 1/4 cup sugar (if you prefer a more sweeter sauce, you can try adding more sugar), and stir until all the sugar is melted. Finally, add the 2 cups of soya sauce and let the sauce warm up. When it starts boiling, take is off the heat.
Let is cool down, and then store it in the refrigerator. It will make several portions, but put in a airtight container it can be stored for quite some time.
Put the sauce in a small cup, so you can dip the noodles in.

Making the soba

Ingredients (2p:)

• 200 gr. soba (will normally be packed in 1-persons portions of 100 gram so very easy!)

Making cold soba noodles is really easy (maybe that's why we like this meal so much?). Put water in a pan and bring to boil. Then, carefully add the soba noodles to the pan, and divide them in the water. Let the noodles boil for the amount of time as indicated on the label (probably around 5 or 6 minutes).
Now comes the most important part of cooking soba noodles. After it's done cooking, you need to wash the noodles thoroughly in cold water. After that it's ready to serve.

 
Traditionally we see cold soba served on beautiful bamboo plates/mats, but since we don't have those we just use our basic plates. Still tastes good!