Tuesday 1 February 2011

CC Soba noodle salad

Sylvia is enjoying cooking lately. She can often be found outside making sand pies in the sandpit or running around with her little saucepans of water. She loves stirring and patting. This week we even found her giving Zinckie a frypan for cooking. Zinc was not amused.

I haven't been "cooking" much. Blame the weather! This week, when I decided to make chocolate brownies to take into work, it was so hot that I didn't want to turn on the oven. I ended up making grubs and cheese and apricot balls. So later in the week when it was almost 40 C, I chose a nice cool soba noodle salad and by the time we ate, the cool change had arrived.

No matter, the salad was lovely. Sylvia was having such a lovely time outside that we ate in the yard with her. I've tried soba noodles a few times and they always seem a bit mushy. This was one of my most successful attempts to date. I enjoyed a dressing that wasn't creamy. The avocado gave enough creaminess to the meal.

I did make the mistake of cooking too many noodles because I found that I had quite a few bits and pieces of packets leftover from previous meals. Fortunately I also added a few more vegies. You can see in the photo of the greenery in the bowl above just how many vegies were already in the salald bowl before the noodles and dressing were added. It made a large and satisfying amount of salad. Perfect for a hot day, if the cool change doesn't reach you first.

I made this from my Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook for the Cookbook Challenge 2011. This fortnight the theme is rice or noodles. See what others found in their cookbooks on this theme at the community page.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: My Camera Birthday Cake
This time two years ago: Apricot and Orange Glazed Tofu
This time three years ago: Muhammara by Moonlight

Avocado, pickled ginger and tofu soba noodle salad
Adapted from Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell and Kate Marsh's The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook
serves 4

200g dried soba noodles (I used 270g but it was too much)
drizzle of sesame oil
200g Japanese seasoned tofu, sliced
170g snow peas, trimmed and sliced
1/2 green capsicum, thinly sliced
1/3 telegraph cucumber, cut into thin sticks
kernels of 1 corn cob
70g baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped
3 spring onions, sliced
2 tbsp pickled ginger, roughly chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/4 cup (45g) toasted unsalted cashew nuts, roughly chopped

Dressing:
2-3 tbsp of soy sauce (I used 2)
2 tbsp mirin*
1 tsp sesame oil
pinch castor sugar

Mix dressing ingredients together and set aside. Cook soba noodles according to the packet (mine said 4 minutes in boiling water), drain and rinse under cold water. Add remaining ingredients and toss to mix together with dressing.

Update: the salad kept in the fridge overnight and was lovely the next day but we still had a little over which was unedible on the third day.

Update April 2012 - made this with the vegies in the fridge (no avocado) and 1 lime and 1 tsp maple syrup instead of the mirin - worked well though I missed the avocado.   I also used less soba noodles (180g) which was plenty.

On the Stereo:
The exotic moods of Les Baxter: Les Baxter

15 comments:

  1. I LOVE soba noodles but always have the same mooshy-noodle problem that you do! Now whenever I make them I always pull them out before I think they are cooked and they seem perfect! Tis weird. I bookmarked this salad to make for myself :D

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  2. How I adore soba! Zaru soba was my favourite meal in Japan :) Funnily enough I always undercook mine, so its hard rather than mushy. eek, I completely got the theme of this fortnight wrong! Back to square one!

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  3. We seem to be in sync, first you posted about a potato salad around the same time we made one, and now noodle salad.

    I really wish soba noodles were gluten free, but haven't been able find any that are, they all stupidly seem to add wheat flour.

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  4. Thanks Vegiebug - I took these out a little before they were cooked and I think it helped - doesn't take long with these noodles does it! Enjoy the salad

    Thanks Hannah - hard is as bad as mushy but at least you can return them to the pot or soak them in hot water for a bit. Look forward to your cookbook challenge - am sure you will have some interesting ideas once you get the theme right :-)

    Thanks K - look forward to your noodle salad (even rushed to your blog to see it) - and that is odd about soba noodles - I buy mine in the supermarket and they are a lot of wheat but I thought you should be able to find 100% buckwheat ones in heatlh food shops - maybe you will just have to make them :-)

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  5. Sounds delicious with all the vegetables! I like soba noodles a lot and am planning a meal around them for this weekend.

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  6. I so wish it was salad weather here - this is a really delicious salad.

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  7. Looks like a great salad! I'll give this one a try too. Soba salads are so versatile.

    For those that are after some information about 100% buckwheat soba, Kayla from 'Fitter than choc' has provided some information in this entry, including a photo of the packet!

    http://fitterthanchoc.blogspot.com/2011/01/recipe-tofu-soba-with-lemon-ginger.html

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  8. Soba noodles are one of my favorites. The salad looks great with so many greens! And that photo of Zink is priceless! ;)

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  9. Thanks Lisa - wish I planned more meals around soba noodles - am gradually getting more used to them - enjoy your soba meal

    Thanks Brownieville girl - not quite the warm salad weather we are used to in our summers - we've just had massive thunderstorms on the tail end of the Queensland cyclone - but we still get lovely days here and there

    Thanks Queenotisblue - very useful info about buckwheat noodles - must look for those 100% buckwheat noodles

    Thanks Ricki - Zinc is very patient with sylvia but you wouldn't believe what she is expected to do these days - drink milk from dolly's bottle, cook, play lego!!!

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  10. oh yum, I don't eat soba noodles enough!

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  11. Love the look of all that fresh greenery in your bowl...shame the weather changed (although I'm not happy with the 40 degree days myself!)

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  12. This is awesome! I'm a big fan of soba salads; they are the perfect weeknight dinner or weekend lunch. I can totally imagine how yummy this salad taste:) Now I have another soba noodles recipe to try!

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  13. This looks great. I love soba noodles but have never used them in a salad. I will have to try that.

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  14. The world is a small place Johanna - I have this Low GI vegetarian book to and have had it for over a year without making anything from it until this week! I made the brown rice, barley and sweet potato salad which was quite tasty, especially with the tahini yogurt dressing. I will try this noodle salad next as I've recently found a good source of wholegrain soba noodles

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  15. I love the photo of Zinc! So cute. I know what you mean about soba noodles being mushy. I've learned that you have to be careful about overcooking them!

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