Survival Sunday 25: Mentaiko Somen

We made something incredible in the last week or so, and it's all thanks to Umai Crate! It's no Bang Bang Chicken, but it's still awesome!

I present to you: Mentaiko Somen!

A delicious, cool treat for a warm day or a toasty kitchen!

So what is this strange dish?

Somen (Banshunoito Somen in this case) are long, thin noodles that can really fill you up. In a soup, they're called "nyumen", but I'll be calling them "somen" here because there is no broth. Instead, we topped this delicious pile of tasty noodles with something called "mentaiko".

Yes, Z is wearing a Fuji Vice t-shirt.
Because Z is awesome.
Also, those are our banshunoito somen noodles in their package.

Here's where my earnest allergy warning comes in.

Mentaiko is pollock/cod roe mixed with cream. If you're allergic to milk or fish you'll have to give this a pass, even if you can eat wheat and/or rice noodles. I know. I'm sorry. It's delicious.

An unopened container of mentaiko sauce.
We used two pods because we made two servings of noodles.

Now, as weird as a cream-and-fish-egg sauce sounds, I can assure you, it's delicious. I think my tastebuds were a bit... broken, though. Both Z and I tasted hints of strawberry, of all things. It's a light, sweet, salty sauce that makes your noodles really pop!

Here's how we did it:

First, I put together some delicious onion soup from a previous Umai Crate.
We seasoned it with some chipotle and ramen peppers (hachi), and some furikake.
Furikake contains some sesame seeds and some shreds of dried seaweed.
It's usually a topping for rice, and it's delicious.

Another shot of our somen and Z's fantastic outfit!
Z's an awesome model, right?!

I brought some water to a boil and dumped two bundles of the somen in.

After a few minutes, the noodles were soft and the water was at a rolling boil.

We rinsed and drained the somen in cold water.
Being in the northeast helps with this step after October, because the water gets super cold in the pipes.
It took very little time to bring boiling hot noodles down to just below room temperature.

Then it was time for our mentaiko cups!
Here, Z is modeling our awesome fish-egg-sauces so you can see how they look from the top & side.

As you can see, it's a thick, syrupy orange sauce.
My camera really picked up on the reds in these shots, but it's a little paler in real life.
It smells sweet and sour and salty!

You can see the speckles of the eggs!

This was so good with more peppers & furikake and some lemonade!

Another fabulous lunch for Z & me!

I'm gonna take a break on building our pantries for a while, but rest assured, I'm going to make a masterlist of what works well in a spice cupboard and as staples and come back. I hope you don't mind if there are repeats of spices!

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC