Although your pre-battle preparations need to start a week in advance.
With many parts of Japan already experiencing extremely hot days, with some areas of eastern Japan reaching 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), it’s time for residents and tourists alike to start considering how to survive the looming midsummer heat that will be striking in full force in a few weeks. One aspect that some people tend to forget is how heat affects appetite, and the hotter it becomes, the lower your desire to eat, and for our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa, that would be a hindrance on his life’s happiness. So, he took it upon himself to invent a food with a completely new concept for the coming summer, one that he thought he would never tire of eating: ice slurry somen.
Somen is a standard summer comfort food in Japan, being wheat flour noodles that are traditionally served cold, on top of ice cubes or floating in cold water, and less traditionally underneath a garden hose.
While ice slurry, a liquid mixed with ice particles, is well known as a heatstroke prevention measure in sports settings, it has recently begun to gain traction among the general public as a counter to the extreme heat. As such, Seiji couldn’t help but feel it was a match made in heaven.
Looking into the concept a little further, it seemed that food manufacturer Kikkoman had released Sharitto Hiya Somen (crisp chilled somen) earlier in the year, which you freeze before eating, but it only comes in two flavors: Korean Cold Noodle-style and Dashi-Scented Citrus Somen. However, Seiji just wanted a simple tsuyu (noodle broth) made with dashi soup stock, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. So, he started to look into how he could make it on his own.
Fortunately enough, it seemed pretty simple, as essentially all it needs is to become a liquid mixed with ice, so Seiji first diluted concentrated store-bought tsuyu and put it in the freezer, figuring it would freeze if left for about two days.
▼ It did not.
Even after three days, it hadn’t frozen at all.
Apparently, when salt is present, liquid becomes a lot harder to freeze, but “harder” is not “impossible,” so surely with enough time it would eventually freeze. Double-checking that he couldn’t adjust the freezer any lower, Seiji decided to let the tsuyu sit there for about a week…
… and it froze rock hard.
Feeling pleased with himself, now being only a couple of steps away from enjoying an ice-cold meal, Seiji took out his tsuyu ice and put it into a blender, adding in some regular, unfrozen tsuyu to the mix.
▼ Creating a brown whirlpool of icy foam
Having never put tsuyu into a blender before, Seiji wasn’t exactly sure what would happen, but it certainly wasn’t this ominous-looking creation.
Setting aside his surprise at how erratically the tsuyu was behaving, it seemed to be well mixed, so Seiji poured it into a bowl, finally achieving his wish of ice slurry tsuyu, with ice particles covering the tsuyu like thick clouds.
Seiji couldn’t wait to try it, so without hesitation, he tried dipping the somen into the tsuyu and…
… the noodles froze!
They made some kind of crackling sound—completely different from the somen Seiji was familiar with. It seems pausing to take photos is a fatal flaw when eating this meal. He still tried eating them, though, with the noodles having a texture similar to katayakisoba (crispy fried noodles).
Still keen to try out ice slurry somen the way he had intended to, Seiji dipped in for another shot.
The delicate texture of the somen and the feeling of it sliding down his throat, cooling his body from the inside out, was like a welcome into heaven.
It was like stepping into a whole new world of somen, and a commitment to eating nothing else but this for the rest of the summer.
For those looking to prepare Seiji’s new creation at home, the recipe is:
Ingredients
- Hon-Tsuyu (a popular tsuyu concentrate made by Kikkoman)
- Somen noodles
Recipe
1. Leave 140 milliliters (4.7 fluid ounces) of tsuyu in the freezer for one week, following the product’s directions for dilution.
2. Put the ice from step one and some unfrozen tsuyu (100 milliliters [3.4 fluid ounces]) into a blender and mix.
The ratio used is 1.4 parts ice to one part water, but this is just a guide.
3. Boil the somen noodles, dip them into the tsuyu from step two for a split second, and eat.
If you dip them too long, they will freeze.
Except for the fact that this recipe takes about a week to prepare, Seiji is confident in saying that this is a dish that is perfect for summer: a revolution in the world of summer foods. If you’ve tried somen before, this will unlock a completely new level of enjoyment, whereas if you haven’t, you might never be satisfied with the regular version after sampling this fascinating ice slurry somen.
Related: Sharitto Hiya Somen
Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]