Do you wonder what Japanese people are eating during summertime? There are some dishes which are commonly eaten during the hot time. I can safely say the most popular food in the summer is cold noodles. There are many kinds of cold noodles, so I will introduce some of them.
This is made with cold ramen noodles. Many restaurants or ramen shops add hiyashi chuka to their menu during the summer. Cold ramen noodles are topped with different ingredients and cold soup.
Somen / Hiyamugi / Hiyashi Udon
Somen, hiyamugi, and udon are made by kneading wheat flour and salt. Somen and hiyamugi are very similar noodles. Both are very thin (about 1 mm wide), but somen is thinner than hiyamugi. There are square-shaped and round-shaped somen/hiyamugi. Udon has the thickest noodles in this kind.
After boiling these noodles and cooling them, they are eaten by dipping them into soy sauce based soup called men-tsuyu. You can purchase a bottle of men-tsuyu or make it by mixing soy sauce, sake, mirin, water and salt in bonito or kelp based soup. Since these cold noodles are plain, it is served with side ingredients (called yakumi) to mix with the dipping soup. Common side ingredients are ginger, seaweed, wasabi (Japanese horse radish), green onion, and so on.
Udon noodles can be eaten hot or cold, but cold udon is more popular in hot times.
Cold Soba (Buckwheat noodles)
Soba is made from buckwheat flour, so the color is dark. As udon, soba is eaten hot or cold, but the most popular soba dish during summer is cold soba, such as mori soba and zaru soba. The next page will tell you how to eat cold soba.
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