Vol. 4
How to eat somen
そうめんの食べ方

　This time I will introduce to you the preparation of somen (fine Japanese wheat noodles), starting with the dipping sauce and going all the way to boiling the noodles.

　With only a little bit of skill you can serve refreshing and delicious somen to your guests.

- Appropriate amount of somen noodles
- Proportion of 5 to 1 to 1 of bonito stock (katsuo dashi), mirin, and dark soy sauce for the dipping sauce
- Toppings such as perilla, myoga, spring onion, and ginger
- Side dishes like simmered shiitake mushrooms (shiitake umani) or slices of omelet (kinshitamago)

1. Make the dipping sauce

　Bring the dipping sauce ingredients bonito stock, dark soy sauce and mirin to a boil and allow them to cool.　The purpose of boiling the dipping sauce is to eliminate the smell of alcohol from the mirin.

　Bonito stock is commonly used, but for a stronger and better tasting dipping sauce, you can make it a little bit darker.　I recommend to mix dried kelp with bonito flakes in water so that they comprise approximately 2% of the liquid.

2. Boil the noodles

　Let me introduce a boiling method well used in restaurants.　Tie the tip of each bundle of somen with a cooking thread like in the figure below.　This way the somen can be arranged beautifully when served.　I use this method to get an elegant shape for the noodles and not to scatter them.

　(This way of boiling is special, so if you just eat with your family, you can simply boil the noodles, and serve them after washing them in ice water)

3. Arrange the somen for serving

　Cut off the tip of each bundle that was tied by the cooking thread.　That part of a bundle may not be cooked properly.　Therefore, adjust how much you cut off, and remove the undercooked segment.　Make the serving look better and higher in volume by interleaving two bundles of noodles one with the other.

　Pour some ice water over the somen and decorate it with something like a green maple leaf to turn even the simplest noodles into a fancy dish.　After that, serve the somen along with your favorite toppings and side dishes.

（レシピ・写真： 冨田唯介）

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