Thursday, September 13, 2012

Somen Salad with Mini Portobello Mushrooms


This is a variation of the Udon Salad with Sesame Dressing.

Instead of using udon, I used Japanese somen instead. Somen is a kind of thin, white Japanese noodles made of wheat flour. You can get somen in Japanese or Korean supermarkets. They cook very quickly - about 2 - 3 mins in boiling water, and hence are very convenient if you don't want to spend a long time cooking lunch on a hot day.

The "salad" part of the dish was made up of mixed salad leaves, cherry tomatoes and grapes.  Then, I added some mini portobello mushrooms which I stir fried with some olive oil and black pepper and salt.

Instead of adding sesame sauce, I used wafu (和風) dressing instead.

"Wafu dressing" literally means "Japanese-style dressing". It is a vinaigrette and soy sauce based salad dressing, which you can make easily at home.. You whisk some oil, rice vinger, soy sauce and sugar to taste to get the base of the dressing. Then, you can add yuzu sauce or grated ginger or roasted sesame seeds etc to make give the dressing an extra kick. You can also add some sesame oil to make it a chukafu (中華風) dressing, ie Chinese-style dressing (although it's still "Japanese" Chinese-style dressing, if that makes sense..).

Of course, wafu dressing is also easily available in most supermarkets in Singapore. Just look for it in the Japanese food section.

I forgot to take pictures of the dressing...

No comments: