It’s the tail end of July and we’re still experiencing hot! Hot! Heat! in London. So what better way to chill out than with a slight twist to my all time favourite noodle, the tempura udon. London’s finally got a bona fide udon-ya in the guise of Koya which serves some truly sublime sanuki udon in a proper kansai broth (i.e. clear). The chefs were brought over from Kunitoraya in Paris famed for being one of the best places for udon in Europe. I always have the tempura udon which has been my favourite since childhood, but I’m a little miffed that you only get one prawn tempura for the princely sum of £9 (that’s daylight robbery!) Tempura udon should have TWO prawn tempuras, people!

So we decided to make our own. We got ourselves the following ingredients: frozen sanuki udon, prawns, aubergine (eggplant), lady fingers (okra), an onion, half a daikon (mooli), spring onions (scallions), a jar of nameko (small Japanese mushrooms in a sweet sauce) and some men tsuyu (ready-made, concentrated broth for soba and udon).

The frozen sanuki udon is probably the best ready made udon I’ve tried; it’s thick, chewy and robust. I’ve never really had nameko before but it’s got some umami and would also pair nicely with some hot Japanese rice.

We made a light tempura batter with flour, an egg and ice cold water. We left some water in the freezer to make it super cold and it had a film of ice on top (but that’s optional, of course). We lightly floured the prawns, sliced aubergine, lady fingers and sliced onion before dipping them into the batter and deep frying them in vegetable oil. It was our first attempt at making tempura and it came out extremely well: crisp and light. Except for the lady fingers which were too tough. I suspect we needed to blanch them a little before deep frying.

In the meantime, we boiled the sanuki udon and when done, rinsed the noodles under cold running water to disperse the heat. We separated them into bowls, added some cold water to the men tsuyu (you can decide how strong you want the tsuyu to be), then topped the udon with the tempura, grated daikon, nameko and sliced spring onions. Easy!

The cold noodles and tsuyu contrasted perfectly with the crisp, warm tempura, and the sharp kick from the grated daikon was in turn mellowed by the nameko.

Perfection in a bowl on a hot summer evening.

After living with my parents for the last year and half, I forgot how difficult it is to cook for just yourself. Aside from it being a little lonely (I like to cook for other people!), it takes a lot of planning and coordination. Grocery shopping for one is an artform that could take years to master. Even though I lived in NYC alone for almost three years, I am a bit dusty in the solo-cooking category– evidenced by the near-rotting produce every week in my vegetable box since moving into my studio.

But if you’re as anal as I am about not wasting food, then you’ve gotta figure out how to use it without having gastro-intestinal issues later, right?

Inspired by Yoko’s post on canned fish last week, I made one of my favorite lazy dishes, tuna pasta. I learned to make this while living in the dorms in Italy– it’s the epitome of a low-budget meal, and it tastes so friggin’ good!

START TIME

INGREDIENTS

My current obsession is arugula, and I try to eat it with everything. I will even just eat it right out of the bag. The bitterness really makes it taste nutritious, don’t you think?

However, it’s still pretty hard to go through a bag of it from Trader Joe’s (only $2!) before it starts to yellow.

Fresh sweet green peas. These were probably in the fridge for about two weeks and by the time I decided to use them, there were all of these black streaks on the pods. I thought they were unusable for sure, but when I opened them up, they were fine.

See how they’re a little shriveled up? I took them out and soaked in water overnight, which seemed to bring them back to life.

Slice onions, garlic and grape tomatoes. The tomatoes were on their way out.

Secret weapon: Tuna packed in olive oil from Italy. I keep a stash of these in my cupboard and use in emergencies. Canned tuna from Italy and Spain is the BEST– cannot beat the quality, texture and taste. I lugged more than a few cases of these from when I went to Rome in 2007.

METHOD

Important step: Use the olive oil from the tuna can to sautee the vegetables. The tuna infused flavor is vital. Plus, why waste perfectly good olive oil?

Add the garlic, onions, tomatoes and peas over medium heat. Salt and pepper.

Once the onions are cooked down, add the tuna, and some white wine if you desire.

Let tuna simmer for a bit, then add arugula. This should be the very last thing you do.

Sautee until the arugula has wilted down.

END TIME

That’s it! I boiled pasta while I was cooking, and just scooped some of the arugula/tuna mixture over it like a sauce.

I usually just make this dish with just tomato, onions, garlic and tuna. The arugula and peas were last-minute additions I made just to avoid having to throw them out. As horrible as this may sound, I appreciate near-rotting vegetables if only because it forces me to think of creative ways to use them.

PS- I did NOT get the runs after eating this meal.

The first time my husband found a bag of Capellini at a grocery store in America he said “It’s like sōmen.” Indeed, sōmen is about the same thinness as capellini and takes about the same time to boil – 3 minutes.

But unlike capellini, sōmen is always eaten cold in the summer in tsuyu broth or in a salad. Sōmen is made with wheat flour making it the thinner version of the more ubiquitous udon.

The only reason why I loved the summers in Tokyo was for the cold noodles. Sōmen, hiyashi-udon, hiyashi-chūka and zaru-soba became dominant menu items in local noodle shops everywhere and I made sure to stop in at least 3 times a week. Ingredients for making all of the above were also featured in grocery stores, making a sōmen breakfast the standard choice on a Saturday morning.

I have become kind of a die-hard fan of Hakubaku brand noodles here in the states. They offer a whole line of organic Japanese noodles including soba, sōmen and udon. I have become pretty loyal to this brand after eating some pretty atrocious varieties including Shirakiku’s “Zaru Soba.”

Sōmen on the right, Soba on the left.

The sōmen rundown:

Serves 1

1 bunch of sōmen noodles (they come bundled in paper ties)
1 green onion, chopped finely
1/2 tsp of grated ginger
1/2 cup tsuyu

Sōmen preparation is pretty similar to preparing soba. The idea is to prepare the dry noodles to have a soft but tight texture.

1. Boil plenty of water in a large pot.

2. Add the sōmen noodles into the boiling water. Make sure to place the noodles into the water so they are not all bunched together. You can swish the noodles around in the water so they don’t stick together.

3. Make sure that the noodles are constantly rolling with the water. Boil for 3 min. I recommend using a timer because these 3 minutes go by really fast.

4. Cut the onions and grate the ginger.

5. Raise the noodles into a colander. To get rid of the “slimy” surface texture of the noodles, rinse the noodles with running cold water.

6. Dunk the noodles in the colander into an ice bath.

7. Serve the sōmen as is in the colander and ice bath. You never want lukewarm sōmen, so it’s your best bet to take the noodles directly from ice cold water when eating.

8. Pour the tsuyu into a little bowl and place as much sōmen as you can grasp into the tsuyu bowl. Add ginger and green onions to the bowl and swish it around with the noodles so all the flavors will adhere to the sōmen.

9 Slurp and enjoy.

This is definitely not capellini al pomodoro.

London is scorching this week and what better way to spend a weekend than by getting a bit of sunny goodness with an absorbing book at Waterlow Park, next to Highgate Cemetary where my father’s hero, Karl Marx, is buried. I get to use my brain, immerse myself in a story and work on my tan.

I found some elderflower bushes and plucked myself a sprig which smelt divine, making me want to hunt down a recipe for elderflower cordial. I normally drink the ready made stuff which makes a nice change from Vimto. Sometimes drinking water is just too boring.

After a few hours in the sun, my cold water bottle was perspiring as much as I was and my stomach was growling with hunger. So I popped down to my sis’ and helped myself to some much-needed noodly goodness: mee soup or soup noodle made with chicken stock, lemongrass, a bit of ginger and soy sauce and lots of veg, chicken and half a boiled egg. This is comfort food Malaysian/Chinese style.

My sis makes this herself. It’s really easy and you can adjust the taste to suit. She uses chicken stock (cube, fresh store-bought or boil your own– her mother-in-law does that), a stalk of lemongrass cut into three pieces and bruised, a few slices of ginger, a dash of soy sauce, salt and chilli flakes to taste. Add chicken pieces and boil for about 15 – 20 minutes. Add any veg (mushrooms, greens, bean sprouts) in the last five minutes. Cook the noodles separately (the dried egg/rice noodles you can get in any Asian market, not the instant ramen). and then combine together just before eating.

Simple, delicious and light enough for a summer’s day.

Piggybacking on Yamahomo’s drunk cooking post, this week’s Japanify introduces techniques for making instant ramen that will please drunks. After a long, explosive night of dancing, my husband prepared Sapporo Ichiban instant ramen.

An avid eater of Sapporo Ichiban instant ramen in his native Japan, my husband was ecstatic that Sapporo Ichiban was also available in his new country of residence (America). Upon eating his first pack in California, he was appalled at that the bad noodle quality of American Sapporo Ichiban. To improve the flavor and texture of the almost inedible noodles in American Sapporo Ichiban ramen, he experimented and came to the same conclusion that the late Julia Child would come to time and again: butter. The butter coats the otherwise, low-grade noodles to possess a texture that is less spongy and also helps the noodles to have more umami.

Instant ramen sounds like a trip back to the college years, but the following introduces some additions and techniques to turn the most popular meal in dorm rooms coast-to-coast to an umami-pumped midnight indulgence for us more mature folks…

Boil water in a large pot.

Add the noodles.

Cut up leftover veggies into small pieces. We had shiitake, green onions and shiso leaves to spare.

Boil the noodles (see package for boil times).

Throw in the shiitake and green onion for the last minute or two. Add the soup packet.

Turn off the heat and add a pad of butter to the mixture. Mix well.

Plate the noodles in bowls and serve to your hungry, drunk guests.

I try not to buy many kitchen gadgets, especially since the mandolin was such a big mistake. Not only did I almost lose my finger, but there’s not much use for it. I have a stand mixer that I use all the time, and the meat grinder attachment is awesome, especially in the summertime for homemade burgers.

I tried to make homemade pasta a couple of weeks ago, and completely failed. Since many fresh pasta recipe says, “You can either use rolling pin or pasta machine,” I tried using a rolling pin. It didn’t roll… Whatever I did was wrong, and the dough was more elastic than pizza dough, and didn’t stretch at all. In the end, I cut it all up anyways, and dunked it in boiling water. It took 10 minutes to cook the damn thing, and was totally inedible. Failure.

So I contemplated whether I should buy a $150 stand mixer pasta attachment, or an old school pasta maker for $34.99.  After pondering this for a while, I decided to go with the pasta maker for obvious economical reasons. Unless you are an Italian mama who needs to make pasta every day of the week, there’s no need to spend $150 for attachments, don’t you think?

Let me tell you. I LOVE IT! It is soooo much fun. I looked around a lot of sites for dough recipes, and ended up using one that came with the instruction of the machine. 2 1/2 cup of flour, 4 eggs, pinch of salt. That’s it.

Just like how you see it on TV or magazines, you make a well with flour, drop eggs and salt, and mix and knead until the dough is shiny.  Luckily the dough was working fine this time, and it became very shiny.

After resting the dough for like an hour, here came the fun part.

Cut the dough into 4th on floured surface, and thin it out so that it goes through the roller.

Start with the widest (dial 7), roll it out, fold in half, roll it out, fold in half.  This activity is definitely kids friendly, or any idiots who can’t cook will be able to enjoy.

It’s more like Playdough than cooking at this point. Slowly roll the dough with a tighter dial, and eventually, you will end up with this almost-see-through beauty.

Then you can cut it.  You can easily cut this with a sharp knife, but I wanted to use the fettuccine cutter. This part was so satisfying too. How easily, and evenly, you can cut pasta with this was just awesome. And it comes out in a matter of seconds.

I call this, ladies and gentleman, PASTA PORN!

I could have thinned it out even more, but don’t you think this is pretty good for a first timer?

I had frozen tomato sauce, so made meatballs, and boiled the pasta for like 4 minutes. Pasta with meatballs. It was amazing how al dente the pasta was.

Now here’s where my creative (yet crazed) kitchen brain starts to tick. Using the pasta machine, what should I make other than pasta? Yes, I will definitely make spinach pasta and other noodles, but something even crazier. Something that needs to be stretched thin, that needs to be cut evenly, without using oil (pasta machine can NOT be washed with water since they are made out of cheap metal, and any contact with water will definitely rust badly). If you can think of something out of ordinary, please let me know. I haven’t been able to come up with anything interesting so far.

Cold noodles are one of the best things about the summer. My favorite cold noodles are soba noodles. When it’s hot outside and steaming rice sounds like the last thing I want to do, I can always rely on soba noodles. But there have been more than a few times that I find that my tsuyu (soba dipping sauce) supply is bone dry or when my wallet is feeling the burn.

Premade tsuyu in bottles is convenient if you do not regularly have a dashi-making method. But premade tsuyu is pricey – over $4 for only 12 ounces (about 6 or 7 servings) and if soba is a staple meal for the summer at your household, it’s comforting to know that there is a budget-friendly alternative with very little fuss. Making tsuyu from scratch is astonishingly easy and uses only three ingredients:

1 cup dashi stock (please refer to my post a few weeks back on how to make dashi)
1/4 mirin
1/4 soy sauce

Put the three liquids into a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Store in an air-tight container until cool.

Insider’s tip: for the soba, boil it a few minutes longer than what the package tells you.

Once you have passed the soba noodles through a strainer, immediately dunk the strainer full of noodles into an ice-cold bath of water.

Keep the noodles dunked for about 10 minutes – this makes the soba “al dente.”

Serve soba with freshly chopped green onions, some nori and a dab of wasabi on the side of the tsuyu bowl.

This meal is ideal for the summer because it’s quick, easy and doesn’t weigh you down.

A recent New York Times article about exploring Tokyo via its ramen shops left me desolate, homesick, and hungry. I whined to friends about the lack of REAL quality ramen here in the Bay Area– hell, even in Los Angeles, which has some pretty decent ramen.

A friend kept suggesting ramen joint after ramen joint up here that I kept shooting down again and again. Sorry, I told him, but when you’ve lived out in the Japanese countryside and eaten ramen made by some 60 year old man who has been making ramen for the last 50 years, who got up at 5am to start making a mystical pork broth, really, nothing else can compare. I am a ramen snob.

It wasn’t always this way. I used to associate the word with that instant cardboard drivel so many friends and boyfriends seemed to subsist off of in college. But then I moved to the boondocks of Japan, where only a few days off the plane, after settling into my tiny apartment, I slurped down my first real bowl of ramen.

Porky, soothing, a complex mix of textures, it soon became our go-to-after-karate meal, and satisfying lunches during weekend trips to Tokyo. I knew that I’d finally earned the trust of my coworkers once they shared the secret of their favorite ramen shop just out of town- a magical place with truly magical broth for only 500 yen a bowl ($5!).

It was there that for the very first time I drank every single drop of the broth following my meal– Japanese coworkers had confided that the mark of a truly delicious ramen is one where you feel compelled to drink all the broth. So for me, ramen has that extraordinarily powerful wallop of sentimentality. Reading that New York Times article, I missed, with almost a physical aching, the perfect bowl of ramen.

Well, the universe must have heard my cry, because lo and behold, I was lucky enough to secure the very last spot at a secret Guerilla Ramen Night at a private home in San Francisco.

Kayoko knows a guy– a guy who is not only crazy about ramen, but also crazy talented at MAKING ramen. He’s gone to Japan to research the ramen craft many times. He makes his own noodles, stews a from-scratch broth for hours, and marinates the pork loin to perfect succulence.

This past Sunday night, he and his very gracious wife opened their home to a small horde of hungry ramen fans, and treated us to an unforgettable evening.

Homemade ramen noodles waiting to be cooked.

A single bowl of broth waits patiently on the stove for its dollop of noodles.

Puttin’ in all the fixins.

Yoko digs into her bowl of spicy ramen with relish. She and her husband had dressed for the ballet earlier that day and added another level of ambiance to the evening.

Look at that hot ball o’ spice!!!

A juicy bite of pork in Yoko’s ramen.

My bowl of ramen: The Special, with pork, mentaiko (spicy cod roe), and kikurage (wood ears).

Oh my god you guys, so good… SO GOOD!!! Best I’ve had since leaving Japan. I don’t know if any of you have ever watched Japanese television, but my favorite show is one called “My Little Chef“, where a young Japanese chef makes food so good it makes the eaters go into ecstasies of sentimentality and nostalgia. Eating this, i felt like i was back in the countryside again, looking out a window at rice paddies, enjoying a quiet afternoon, thinking about where i was going to explore next.

Look at how creamy the broth is. The consistency of the fresh-made noodles were soft, but not too soft, and contrasted nicely against the crunch of the bamboo, the green onion, and the pickled ginger. The spicy roe gave an extra kick to the already wonderfully flavorful broth.

The pork was perfect, so juicy and tender. The egg was a revelation– the yolk had absorbed all the porky-goodness of the broth, and was just the right silky consistency. I wish I had taken a photo of the bowl when I was done, I was very tempted to lick the bottom clean. I drank ALL the broth, sodium intake be damned.

But wait, the excitement isn’t over yet…! Our gracious host even made ICE CREAM!! There were two flavors to choose from- a coconut porter made from a homebrew our host and his friends make, and a mint mint ice cream. I went with the coconut, which was a very nice way to end such a rich meal- fresh, light, and very delicious.

Once again, thanks so much to our host and his wife for such a wonderful, delicious evening! I gave up my current cycle of vegetarianism for this night, and believe me, it was so, so worth it.

*Wen lives in the South Bay, where she draws greeting cards and scrapbooks for a living. She has accepted her eventual slide into obesity.

**Umamiventures are organized monthly, traveling far and wide to find good, cheap grub off the beaten path.

***Become a Facebook Fan of UM to stay updated on all future trips!

Past Umamiventures include:
1.) Ocean Jewel Restaurant – Flushing, NYC; June 2007
2.) Red Hook Ball Fields - NYC; June 2007
3.) Taste of Jackson Heights – NYC; October, 2007
4.) Sripraphai Restaurant – Woodside, NYC; November 2007
5.) WINTERMARKET – South St. Seaport; December 2007
6.) Jackson Diner- Jackson Heights, NYC; January 2008
7.) Pacificana – Sunset Park, NYC; February 2008
8.) Puerto Alegre – The Mission, SF; March 2008
9.) Dinosaur BBQ – Harlem, NYC; April 2008
10.) Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden – Astoria, NYC; May 2008
11.) Brooklyn Banh Mi Crawl – Sunset Park, NYC; August 2008
12.) Sheapshead Bay Lobster Crawl – NYC; September 2008
13.) Flushing Food Circuit – NYC; October 2008
14.) Strong Beer Month – SF; March 2009
15.) Loisaida Throwback Crawl – NYC; April 2009
16.) Harley Farms Goat Dairy – Pescadero, CA; June 2009
17.) Tomales Bay Oyster Farm – Marshall, CA; August 2009
18.) Din Tai Fung – LA; September 2009
19.) Din Tai Fung – Tokyo; September 2009
20.) Schroeder’s Oktoberfest – SF; October 2009
21.) Fish Taco Crawl – San Diego; November 2009
22.) St. George Spirits & Hangar One Vodka -  Alameda; January 2010
22.5) Everett & Jones – OAK; January 2010
23.) Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse – NYC; February 2010

Let’s say I know this guy. We’ll call him Marcel.

Marcel is a ramenaholic. You think you love ramen? Oh no, not like Marcel loves ramen.

Marcel has traveled to Japan multiple times to meticulously research the art of ramen. The broth. The noodles. The pork.

This dude is so obsessed, that he pulls his own noodles, stews his broth from scratch for hours upon hours, and marinates the all-important pork loin to perfection. He even makes his own BUTTER for the topping of the butter corn ramen.

Yes, this man is my hero. He’s a Ramen Mad Professor of sorts.

Now, what if Marcel has invited Umamimart into his home in San Francisco this Sunday night (4/18), to feast upon his ramen? Let’s say I’m allowed to bring 10 special guests. Would you want to risk missing this, even if it was a hypothetical situation? I don’t think so.

Become a fan of UM on Facebook for details, as they come to me. Gotta be a fan! This is VIP!!!!

Until Sunday, you may drool at his ramen (above). That would be his “Special Hakata” ramen, including spicy cod roe (mentaiko) and wood ears (kikurage). Mmmmhmmm. Marcel most certainly does NOT fuck around.

Let’s talk today on the subject of one of my favorite foods in the world: pho. But this is not just any kind of pho. I’m talkin’ FRIED PHO. No joke, I crave this every single day and have been dying to share this discovery with you. It’s my ideal debut post for this sparkling new site.

My dear friend Khoi has been talking about this place, Dac Phuc, forever. He and his wife Sarah live in SF, but drive down to the South Bay just for this restaurant. I received a text from him one Sunday afternoon that he would be coming down– would I want to try this place with him and Sarah? It was in the middle of a rush at work, but I literally dropped everything and left as soon as I possibly could. PRIORITIES PEOPLE!

Dac Phuc is located right smack in the middle of downtown San Jose. It has changed ownership in recent years, and has gotten a hip facelift, at least out front.

Inside is super mellow, lots of tables and booths. I hear it gets super packed for lunch.

They have this pale ale called Chau Tien that is brewed at Anderson Valley Brewing Company (of Boont Amber Ale fame). I’m not huge on pale ales but this was a damn good bottle of beer– very fruity. I’m reading that it was created by a Vietnamese-American in the 80s.

As usual, I let Khoi do all the ordering. Couldn’t have it any other way when you’ve got someone who actually speaks the language with everyone at the restaurant.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you: FRIED PHO.

What came out was literally a glob of brown sauce doused with beef, bok choy, onions and tomatoes. But do you see it? The white crispy strands of FRIED PHO????

In concept, it’s basically like the Hong Kong style pan-fried noodles, where you get the swampy sauce over crisp egg noodles. I’m not the biggest fan of this dish cause the noodles get all mushy. But behold, this is pho, so you get a completely different consistency. You definitely get a great crunch factor when you bite in, but it’s miraculously spongy within. It was a total and complete foodgasm.

LOOK AT THIS! UMAMIPORN ALERT!

Of course, we also got a regular bowl of pho. Duh. It was delicious– definitely the best pho I’ve had in these parts (which says a lot, since this is the Mecca of Vietnamese food). The beef came out raw just like I like it, and the noodles were more square-shaped than round.

Khoi instructed me that you know that the soup is house-made when the broth is a bit foggy and not super clear. (GASP! All pho joints don’t make their own soup??? Khoi: “Kayoko, most places just use broth from a can.” Kayoko: “Shut the fuck up!” HEARTBREAK!.)

You see the soup is a bit speckled? Yes.

You know what else? FRIED PHO is not on the menu! Khoi, I owe you, bigtime. I seriously feel like I stumbled upon the greatest Vietnamese restaurant secret in the world. And now it’s your secret too.

This post is dedicated to Midtown Lunch, who emailed asking for a San Jose Vietnamese resto suggestion earlier this week. He just moved to to LA from NYC, which is sad for Midtowners, but happy for ME. Welcome to California, Zach! Let’s tear it up!

DAC PHUC
198 West Santa Clara Street
San Jose, CA
T: 408.297.5517