Cold Soba Salad & Tempura: Daring Cooks February 2011 Challenge

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com.

This month's challenge consisted of two recipes, a cold soba salad and tempura.

I teamed up with my partner in crime, the Inconvenient Food, to handle the tempura part of the challenge, as I get a little intimidated by any sort of frying and since eating all that tempura on my own would be a daunting task. We chose a variety of vegetables to use for our tempura: zucchini, onion, mushrooms, and carrots. We mixed up the batter and added the veggies, and once the oil was heated, in they went. We let them cool on a splatter screen over some paper towels. We couldn't resist tasting the first veggies to come out of the oil, and they were crisp on the outside and cooked on the inside, just like any tempura should be.

In the heat of the moment, we continued with frying, stacking our fried veggies on top of one another on the splatter screen.

This was a bad idea. Since the mass of fried veggies became one large pile, we were left with soggy, "limp and flaccid" (the IF's apt description) tempura - not nearly as exciting as what we had first prepared. So, lesson learned - next time we'd move them to a rack in the oven on one layer.

The next recipe was for the cold soba salad. I had tried soba before and remember not liking it very much, so I was tempted to go with another noodle. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth another shot, so I went with the soba - I picked a variety that was actually a blend of buckwheat and wheat since it was much more affordable than the all buckwheat variety at Whole Foods.

For a topping for the soba, I first made the egg pancakes mentioned in the challenge recipe. I had tasted these sweet egg pancakes before as a sushi component, but never really thought about how making something so delectably delicious could be so easy. It is just a mixture of beaten egg, water, salt, and sugar, strained through a sieve and cooked to be a thin pancake. I found that about one egg's worth (2 pancakes) was a good serving size per person. To serve the pancake, I rolled it up and cut it into strips.

I made the soba according to the recipe instructions, and it cooked perfectly. I also make the spicy dipping sauce, which was very tasty. I topped the soba with the egg pancake strips and added some toasted sesame seeds. I definitely enjoyed the soba, and I think it would make a great meal for an easy summer dinner party. Looking forward to making it again and enjoying it with friends!