Somen Noodle Salad in Inarizushi - Fried Soybean Skins/Pockets

Making salads "to go" is hard. Remember when McDonald's came out with the Salad McShaker in the 90's? I saw people eating that in cars...before cell phones took over as major distractions.

Put the plastic container and long fork away. Try this summer somen salad to go!

Kamaboko is steamed fish cake. It isn't too fishy, and adds pretty colors to the dish. I bought prepared "Inarizushi No Moto" pouches in a can, but you can also make them yourself. See links below for instructions from JustHungry.

Inarizushi pouches, abura-age, and inari age (lots of name for this...and "age" is not pronounced "what's your age in years?" but "ah-ge" (ge as is "get") is basically a fried tofu pouch that is seasoned...you can open the pouch and stuff it with yummy stuff. Most often it is used for inari sushi (or footballs as we called them as kids).

My salad contained: Somen noodles, eggs strips, kamaboko, frozen peas (thawed), green onions. See my earlier post about somen noodles.

You could add anything you want to this salad...edamame, fake crab, lettuce, cucumber, and other veggies. You can also top the salad with nori (seaweed).

I mixed up a quick dressing of: 1 T sesame seeds, dash of salt, 2 T sugar, 2 T sesame oil, 2 T veggie oil, 1/4 c rice wine vinegar, 2 T soy sauce...then stuffed the pouches with the salad!

Top each pocket with some sesame seeds!

Forget the Salad McShaker. Go for the Somen McSalad instead.

Additional Information and Recipes:
Cooking the somen noodles from Food Librarian's earlier post
Inarizushi: Sushi in a Bean Bag from Just Hungry
Making your own fried tofu skins from Just Hungry

Cold Japanese Somen Noodles - A Summer Delight!

It's summer. It's time for somen.

When I wake up on Wednesday morning, me and my big hair (I seriously think some sort of Tease Fairy comes by and gives me 4 inches of mess) pick up the Los Angeles Times. Wednesday is the Food Section, and I'm all about it.

Last week, they had an article about Japanese Somen Noodles. Oh, yes.

Somen Noodles are super thin flour lengths of goodness. They are usually eaten ice cold during the summer. Japan is way humid (think New York and DC in the summer) and they created this cool down food. They are similar to soba (buckwheat) noodles, but thinner.

Somen noodles cook up in a jiffy. Really. 2 minutes in boiling water.

Rinse and rub the noodles to get out the starch. I place them in a bowl with some cold water and ice cubes so everything stays super cold.

To me, somen and egg are best friends. My friend Jessica will say that egg is a best friend of everything on earth. I cooked three eggs way thin (like a crepe) and chopped.

Yum. Egg. My Japanese friend Yuko and can cut the egg razor thin. I can't. Yuko, I need to come to Japan to learn to how to chop!

And what is cooler than a cucumber? Nothing. So add them to your somen. And some nori (seaweed). A topping of green onions is a must! :)

The Los Angeles Times has two recipes for the dipping sauce and other sides, but I went the easy route and bought a bottle at the Japanese store! Look for the words "Somen Tsuyu" on the bottle. It'll be the color of soy sauce.

As with other Japanese noodles, it is okay and expected that you slurp these up. It's not rude, it's the way to go.

You can put ANYTHING on the noodles. I'm sure someone in putting ham, Spam, chicken, fish, kamaboku (pink and white fish cakes), veggies, and everything else on these noodles.

Many put ginger in their dipping sauce...I was so hungry that I forgot to do this! :) There is also a yummy somen salad...I'll make that later this summer.

When it gets too hot this summer, have some somen. Have a good slurp!

Recipe:
Buy stuff at the Japanese store...or check out the Los Angeles Times article ("So Summery, so right: Somen" by Sonoko Sakai. Los Angeles Times, Food section, Wednesday, July 1, 2009) for Iced somen noodles and fried eggplant with soy-mirin dipping sauce and Iced somen noodles with chicken and vegetables with spicy ginger sesame sauce