Cold Noodle Soup
This refreshing icy cold noodle soup will cool you off from heat while you are enjoying the savory, peppery and sweet savor in your mouth.
These last 3 days have been epic hot in WA. I grew up in South Korea and moved from NYC. I know hot days. However, here in WA, it's not normal to have 43 celsius in summer. I do feel global warming on my skin. It's scary to think how hot it will be in tropical countries this summer.
Not many people like to have hot meals in the summer. Neither do I. I remember eating lots of chilled watermelon or ice water during summer in Korea. There are also many cold dishes to cool you off in Korea. One of the common dishes is cold noodle soup. It's beef broth base. I can eat it everyday in summer. It's very refreshing and delicious. However, making the broth is time consuming and the long time heat on the stove results in heating up the kitchen. When it's hot, I want to avoid heat as much as possible.
This soy sauce base broth is somewhat similar to Japanese Zaru Soba (Cold Soba with Dipping Sauce). I made it to a soup version with chicken and vegetable topping. You can always change to different toppings to your taste.
This soup is fairly simple to make and doesn't require specific ingredients from a specialized grocery store. I made it for my husband and for my kids. They enjoyed quite a bit. Having a meal that has ice in it surprised my kids especially. They ate delightfully while cooling themselves off.
Cold Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 12 oz(340g) to 16 oz(450g) dried noodle;
either angel hair pasta, soba or thin udon - 1 lb(450g) or less chicken; thigh or breast cut into bite size
- 1/2 purple or sweet onion sliced
- 1/4 white cabbage sliced
- 12 tbsps soy sauce
- 10 tbsps mirin
- 10 tbsps sugar
- 1 - 2 tsps black or white pepper
- 2 stalks of spring onion sliced
- 2 tsps ginger grated or powder(optional)
- 1 jalapeño thinly sliced(optional)
- some radish sliced or grated(if grated, squeeze to drain excessive juice)
- 1 - 2 tsps gochugaru(red pepper flakes)(optional)
- 1 gim(dried seaweed) thinly sliced(optional, preferred not seasoned)
- 4 tbsps gimjaban(seaweed with bonito)(optional)
Instructions
- Cook noodle following instruction from the package.
- While cooking noodle, combine soy sauce, mirin, sugar and ginger with 2 cups of water in a medium size pot and set to medium high heat.
- When sugar dissolves and starts boiling, change to medium heat and add chicken and cook for 5–8 mins until chicken is cooked through.
- Stir in onion and cabbage to cooked chicken pot and turn off the heat.
- Place the cooked chicken and veggie pot in the fridge or freezer for at least 30 mins to cool down.
- When noodle is cooked, rinse it with ice water and squeeze to drain excessive water.
- Divide noodle into 4 bowls.
- Add a cup of ice to the noodle bowls.
- Divide chicken, veggie and soup evenly to the noodle bowls.
- Add 1/4–1/2 tsp gochugaru or red pepper flakes to the noodle bowls.
- Add 1/2 cup–a cup of ice water to submerge noodle.
- Taste soup. If you want stronger flavor, mix in equal amount of soy sauce, mirin and syrup or honey to the soup.
- If you want more ice, add some more.
- Garnish with radish, spring onion, gimjaban, jalapeño and gim.