hand cut noodles with dipping sauce

hi friends! hope you all are enjoying the seasons transitioning from summer to autumn. it seems a bit late this year, right? paris has been seeing some pretty incredible warm nights for this time of year. i’m currently back in sunny san francisco and will make my way down to la to see my family for the weekend. by the time i get back to paris, i’m confident that it will finally be appropriate to wear turtlenecks and wool coats! 

while it is still a bit warm, and like me, if you’re hanging onto the last thread of summer, noodles with dipping sauce are perfect for this time of transition. you can have it prepared chilled with ice cubes or warm by heating up the dipping sauce over a stovetop. personally, i’d take chilled noodles any day over ones with a hot broth mainly because i love that sensation of taking sips of cold watered-down broth and having that cold liquid run down your spine. 

i killed these chilled noodles before making my way into work, and i wondered why we don’t eat noodles more often for breakfast. why isn’t pasta or udon for breakfast more common? having noodles for breakfast sent me into such a chipper mood, so much so that i had a big fat cheery smile on my entire commute into the office.  

would the world be a better place if people started having noodles for breakfast? i mean if it comes with a poached egg, which is definitely considered a breakfast food, why not?

if you’re a person of rules and bent on having noodles only for lunch or dinner, then i bid you another rule. you definitely need to enjoy these noodles with family or friends. this recipe is categorized as an ayo (pronounced aaay-yo) meal; an acronym that i totally just made up but did so out of necessity because there are no words out there to describe the concept of assembling yo meal yo-self.  

we had plenty of these meals growing up because my mom (probably along with your mom as well) was smart to find all the efficiencies possible when cooking for a large family. prepare everything in bulk, set out on a platter, and offload the time-consuming task of assembling onto the customer. some other examples of ayo meals are: california rolls, spring rolls, taco nights, etc.

i’m really going into extra detail here about why it makes sense to enjoy this as a 1+ meal, but to conclude: the primary reason why you should enjoy this with others is because your effort to prepare for 1 is not far off from preparing for 6; the incremental effort to serve another person is super marginal (setting out dishes, cooking a bit more noodles, poaching another egg). also, radishes from the korean market don’t come in individual serving sizes anyways!

we typically used store-bought buckwheat soba noodles…but those hand cut noodles definitely takes this dish to another level of cushiony luxuriousness that you’d be glad you prepared in advance and stored in the freezer to bust out for an occasion like this ;)

 xo, christine

hand cut noodles with dipping sauce + a poached egg!

ingredients

4 servings of hand cut noodles, or store-bought buckwheat noodles

1 medium sized mu / daikon radish finely grated

2 10 fl. oz bottles of tsuyu

wasabi

2 stalks of scallions chopped

1 bunch of daikon sprouts

2 tablespoon sesame seeds

3 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

4 eggs

prepare garnishes (grated radish, chopped scallions, trimmed daikon sprouts, sesame seeds) and set aside in the fridge

1. poached egg:

   • fill a boiling pot halfway with water

   • heat up to a simmer

   • stir in vinegar

   • using a wooden spoon, stir water clockwise to create a whirlpool

   • crack egg into center of whirlpool and use the spoon to stir water on the outer rim of the whirlpool

   • cook for 3-4 minutes until cooked, remove egg using a slotted spoon and place onto a serving dish

2. prepare noodles using instructions from the handcut noodles recipe (step 6, for eating asap)

3. dipping sauce:

   • cold: chill in fridge, add ice cubes to serving bowls if needed

   • hot: warm the tsuyu over medium heat for 4-5 minutes before serving.

how to eat:

1. pour dipping sauce into bowl

2. using chopsticks, whisk in wasabi and grated radish

3. place noodles into the bowl, add the egg and garnishes and enjoy!!!

4. btw don’t add all the noodles all at once, the concept is to dip and eat!