This is a fantastic summertime soup. It’s wholesome, mineral-rich and digestible, which is just what’s needed in the hot weather to keep the body cool and light, and to replenish minerals lost through sweating. This is thanks to the two kinds of seaweed used; kombu in the dashi and wakame as a garnish. In traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine seaweeds are known to cool the blood, nourish body fluids, soften masses and hard, dry body tissue, and help transform hot-type phlegm.
There are quite a few components to this soup; the dashi, the tare, the boiled eggs, the soaked wakame. I’d suggest making some of them in larger quantities and keeping them on hand for knocking together a quick meal.
Dashi broth is a nice, fat foundation for soba noodle soup. To learn how to make great homemade dashi, here’s a recipe I shared earlier.
There’s nothing wrong with a packet of soba noodles, though I’ve recently been making soba noodles at home with freshly ground buckwheat flour. Yes, it’s time consuming, but the result is stunning. If you’re up for the challenge visit Homemade Soba | Buckwheat Noodles – Lyukum Cooking Lab for the recipe. The video of this lady making soba is so joyful!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1L dashi
4 eggs
100% buckwheat soba noodles, cooked according to the packet instructions
Tare
8 tbsp shiro miso (white miso)
1/8 tsp roasted sesame oil
2 tbsp mirin
2 tsp tamari
To garnish
Finely sliced spring onion tops
Wakame, reconstituted in cold? water
Toasted sesame seeds
Method
Soak the wakame in warm water for a few minutes. It will soften up and expand. Drain and set aside.
Boil the eggs to your desired consistency. My favourite for balancing atop a soup is the ‘jammy egg’ - just the right combination of velvety and oozy. Jammy eggs take 6 ½ - 7 minutes at a boil.
To make the tare, combine all the ingredients and taste. You may like it saltier or sweeter, so add a little extra tamari or sake to adjust.
Cook the soba noodles according to the packet instructions, then rinse them under cold running water to prevent them from sticking to each other. Meanwhile bring the dashi to a simmer.
To serve, place 1 -2 tbsp of tare in each serving bowl. Place a spiral of soba noodles on top, then pour over the dashi. Top each with spring onion tops, sesame seeds, wakame and a halved egg.
Variations:
To make a vegan version, use a kelp and shitake broth.
Other fantastic additions include pre-cooked pork belly, chicken or duck; tempeh, mushrooms (try enoki, shitake or shimeji), any kind of Asian greens and pickled ginger. If you’re adding an extra protein, half a boiled egg will suffice.