Sashimi and Chasoba dinner (30/11/08)

Yesterday was my first time trying to cook Japanese chasoba at home. For those who might not have known, chasoba is Japanese buckwheat noodle infused with green tea. It is typically eaten cold with soy based sauce, and in the past it was a food for the urban poor. In fact why the noodle is eaten cold is supposedly because in the past it is left outside for quite some time, and by the time it's eaten the food would have turned cold!



I bought the ingredients at a nearby supermarket, and the following cost breakdown will suggest that today it is no longer food for the poor. The noodles cost me S$4.45 per packet, the ready-made soba sauce S$6.40 for a 300ml bottle, and dried seaweed for S$2.50. The wasabe cost S$2.50 in a tube, but it's still largely untouched. That was enough for 4 persons, and I still have some of the sauce left. That averages to slightly less than $4.00 per pax.

What I did was very simple. Preheat the boiling water, throw in the chasoba noodles and let it cook for 5 to 10 minutes. When the noodle is cooked take it out of the water and wash it thoroughly with cold running water to make it room temperature. Prepare a container and some ice, then mix the noodle with the ice. Keep it in the freezer for 5 minutes to make it even colder.

I had a ready-made sauce, but will try making my own in future. I mixed the soup base and some wasabi. You can also add chopped radish and chive leaves into the soup.



Because I felt like having a somewhat more luxurious dinner, in the end I went to Shokutsu 10 at Jurong Point #B1 and grabbed some sashimi and mini california maki sushi. The sashimi are salmon (sake), octopus (tako), and cured seaweed (chuka kurage). In total that cost additional $21.40. It was rather expensive, but in the end turn out to be an excellent dinner.