Vegan & Demanding

Continuing with Saturday’s Japanese dinner, here are a couple more recipes.

Cha soba noodles with traditional garnishes

Cha soba is green tea flavoured soba. Here it’s served cold with various garnishes and dipping sauce.

Ingredients

• 240 gr (half pound) dry green tea soba noodles
• 5 ml (1 tsp) sesame oil
• 1 sheet nori, toasted and cut into match sticks
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 2 cm (1″) piece of ginger, grated
• wasabi paste

Dipping sauce

• 350 ml (1½ cups) water
• 75 ml (1/3 cup) Japanese soy sauce
• 75 ml (1/3 cup) mirin
• 2 ml (½ tsp) sugar

Preparation

Cook noodles in boiling water for 3-4 minutes until done but still firm. Carefull not to over cook them. Drain, rinse under cold water and drain well. Transfer to a bowl, toss with sesame oil and seeds.

In the oven or better, over an open flame, toast nori sheet then use scissors to cut into match sticks.

Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool.

Arrange noodles on 4 plates, sprinkle with nori. Serve with individual bowls of dipping sauce. Present green onion, ginger and wasabi paste separately so people can garnish as they like.

Serves 4

Nasu dengaku

(grilled eggplant with miso glaze)

This is classic Izakaya fare. If you can’t find Japanese eggplants use any other young and small eggplants.

For grilled eggplant

• 4 small Japanese eggplants, cut in half lengthwise
• vegetable oil for brushing
• sesame seeds

For glaze

• 125 ml (1/2 cup) dashi
• 15 ml (1 tbsp) sugar
• 15 ml (1 tbsp) mirin
• 60 ml (1/4  cup) white miso
• 10 ml (2 tsp) corn starch
• yuzu kosho pepper to taste (optional)

Start by making the glaze. Combine dashi, sugar, mirin, miso and corn starch together. Simmer until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and whisk in yuzu.

Cut eggplants in half lengthwise and score the flesh to grab the sauce. Brush with oil and grill on a BBQ or under a broiler until the tops are a nice brown and the eggplant is cooked but still quite firm.

Cover the cut side with the glaze, sprinkle with sesame seeds and put under the broiler until caramelized (watch it, this happens very fast and you don’t want to burn them).

Serves 4

Variation

This glaze is quite delicious on very fresh grilled tofu (the stuff you buy from vendor in Chinatown not the bricks of rubber you find at the grocer).