Edamame soup

As you already know, I am a great fan of greens and even more in the form of beans: green beans, fava beans and of course the famous Japanese edamame. You have seen this year already my edamame ravioli, and many years ago edamame rice, but there is so much more to do with edamame!!!

I tested the gyoza version of the ravioli: pasta without egg and fried in a pan instead of boiled and that was scrumptious. But that’s not all!!

One thing that was on my to-do list with edamame was a soup, like that with fava beans or green beans, so I was more than happy when my IG friend Junkikat posted a recipe of edamame soup inspired from Korean soy beans and noodles: Kong-guksu. I am not familiar with Korean cuisine very much, but I was very much attracted by the simplicity of her recipe. I adapted further to my liking and pantry and ended with a delicious recipe that was extremely simple. In a sense it reminded me ramichelles, even though it has nothing much in common but the thin noodles that are so delicious in summer!!!

Edamame soup and noodles (2 servings)

  • 75g of dry somen or vermicelli
  • 1 handful of boiled and shelled edamame (about 3 handfuls of edamame in pods)
  • Water
  • Katsuobushi thin flakes (furikake style)

If your edamame are not boiled boil them, it’s ok to overcook them a bit. Remove the pods and skin. In a mortar, puree them. Add water little by little to obtain a very creamy paste. Once the creamy paste has been obtained, add further water to obtain a thick liquid. Boil the noodles and drain under cold water to cool them.

In a bowl serve half of the soup, add the noodles, top with katsuobushi flakes. Eat at room temperature or refrigerated.

Japanese summer noodles

In the summer, it is very common to eat chilled or cold noodles in Japan. Cold soba, cold udon… but one of the most popular is probably cold somen. These are thin wheat noodles that are very quick to boil, and very quick to cool down. They are served with a lot of different items and dressed with some soya sauce based tsuyu. Now that it is hot in Tokyo, making somen is a really perfect idea for a rapid dinner preparation. I didn’t use the classic soya sauce base dressing, rather olive oil and a few drops of soya sauce. And I served them with simply grilled fresh bonito and okra, cucumber and lettuce. Light, fresh and well-balanced for a hot summer evening.

Japanese dinner at home

When we have visitors from Europe for dinner and it’s there first time in Japan I usually cook Japanese for them, but I cook what I call “soft Japaanese”. I don’t try to impress them with my skills in cha-kaiseki cuisine with elaborated tofu mixes, plain white rice and strongly miso tasting fish and Japanese sweets for example. I prefer to introduce them to flavors their palate can identify and distinguish if they don’t. And if they come on week day, since I don’t have the luxury to spend more than 2h for grocery shopping+cooking, I need to be very organized.

This time our guests have been in Tokyo for a few days already, and travelling the world before arriving there so I crafted a menu where they can enjoy Japanese food while still feeling the casual home made touch: 

somen with a chicken meat ball as a starter,
ginger grilled pork (buta shoga yaki) with white and whole rice,
miso soup with silky tofu and mitsuba.
for dessert, just fresh summer fruits in salad: Japanese grape, Japanese plums and Japanese green melon.

If the main dish and dessert are quite common, for the starter I composed a recipe from cha-kaiseki and adjusted it to the market. The original recipe is using snapper and togan, a kind of summer gourd; but I couldn’t find neither so I replaced the fish with chicken meat balls made out of grinded chicken breast and startch, boiled in konbu dashi, and the togan was replaced by thinly sliced cucumber. The whole thing seasoned with a few drops of soya sauce. And I added two slices of dried shiitake. Since it is almost summer I chosed somen and served the whole refregirated. Bonus: since It is refrigirated you can prepare the bowls and just take them out of the fridge to serve!

 The starter: somen with chicken meat ball and cucumber
The starter: somen with chicken meat ball and cucumber

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