Survival Sunday 233: Taiwan Mix Soba Sauce

An Umai Crate Adventure

I love exploring Asian cuisine via Umai Crate - they do not sponsor this blog by any means (though I wouldn't say no if they offered...). Every month, a new giant yellow box on my doorstep. Every month, oodles of noodles from Japan (though I've gotten plenty of Korean and Chinese dishes as well). Every month, deliciousness.

The meal I prepped for this blog was Taiwanese with a Japanese spin. I believe it was from the August 2019 crate. These noodles were served cold - which is always fun! Some time, I'd love to find a way to film the process of making cold noodles, because it's a blast, and I think you'd probably enjoy watching me flail around without a colander.

We didn't use the middle packet for this venture, figuring that a Yuzu sauce would be
a bit much on top of the already thick and rich Taiwanese sauce in the first bag.

I believe this is the very first time we've received meat in our Umai Crate, too, so this was an extra neat adventure!

This packet felt heavy and chunky, which sounds very unappealing, I know,
but it was actually pretty neat. Again, I don't think we've ever gotten anything
like this before in previous crates!

They're not soba, not really, but we love these Chinese noodles.
They're thick, salty, and really awesome hot or cold.

The first step in prepping most noodle dishes is, of course, to boil water. In this case, I boiled the water in a saucepan on a stovetop, but sometimes you can get away with a kettle. Here in the US, our power doesn't work the way it does in other countries, so it's actually faster to boil water on the stovetop in a teakettle than it is to get an electric kettle. I know that's not the case in the rest of the world, but like with our ridiculous Imperial measurements, we're too stubborn to get with it.

Here we see the water juuuuuust starting to simmer.

 After you get the water to a boil, add your noodles. I try to fan them out when I can, but... it's not always so easy to do that. If your noodles won't drop into a nice fan, just grab your cooking chopsticks (or, you know, a pasta spoon or whatever you're planning to stir with) and start moving those noodz around. You don't want them stuck to the bottom of the pan! Boy is that a pain to wash up after...

If you can find these Chinese Noodles, you're probably going to be a bit startled at just how... odd the water looks when you're done boiling them and making them soft.

The water in question.

The water from mine became this weird, thick, yellowish slurry that I assume was the result of different proteins cooking out of the noodles or something. Definitely dispose of this with the water running so it doesn't coat your pipes. You also want to start draining your noodles as soon as you feel like they're done enough (that's a subjective thing, dude - some like 'em stiff, others like 'em squishy).

For me, the process is a bit weird, since I don't use a colander. Instead, I just plop the noodles into a bowl and immediately begin rinsing them with cold water. This process is pretty simple, but it's also made complicated by the slipperiness of the noodz. Basically, I fill the bowl with cold water, swish the noodles around, and then carefully drain the water, repeating the process until the noodles are all cool to the touch. Then I gently squeeze the remaining water from the clump of noodles and dump the bowl out. Finally, I return the noodles to the bowl and let them relax, sometimes spreading them around with chopsticks if they're getting sticky.

Cold noodles in a bowl. This is where things really get started, flavor-wise.

Now that your noodles are situated in their environment, you want to get started adding flavor. Sometimes this means a broth or soup that you pour over the top or save off to the side. Sometimes you're adding veggies or meat at this stage. In this case, we had the Taiwanese Soba sauce.

This was a beautiful sauce in real life. It was shiny
and reddish brown with chunks of minced meat throughout.

I don't know if I could ever do the sweet, savory flavor of this sauce justice. Something like a barbecue flavor was balanced with a gentle soy undertone with just enough saltiness and spiciness to really keep you eating. This meal barely made it to the table and it was incredibly tasty. I could probably eat this five nights a week in the summer and be happy every single time.

So that's all from me today. Have any of you tried this or something like it? Let me know in the comments!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC