The weather intervened again today and the idea of preheating my oven and then baking a strata for 35 minutes made my skin crawl. L. requested zaru soba instead, which is an easy recipe in the summer, especially as any Asian grocery store will sell pretty good ready made "men tsuyu" dipping broth.
You cook buckwheat soba noodles, cool them by running cold water over them and mixing in some ice cubes, drain them, top them with some chopped spring onion and snipped dried seaweed (or in our family egg and seaweed furikake) and then hoover the noodles hungrily into your mouth, dragging them through the broth first. A little wasabi stirred into the broth is a nice addition too. Slurping and drippage will ensue.
One of our neighbors in Tokyo would make this dish for me when I was little and, though it took me a while to get the proportions right, here is a close simile of her men tsuyu recipe for those who want to make this at home.
1 1/2 c dashi
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
Make your dashi by pouring boiling water over a fist sized piece of kombu and 1/2 cup of bonito flakes. Set aside to cool. (Nowadays you can actually buy dashi sachets to which you add water which is a simpler way of making the stock base).
Heat the sake and mirin together in a pan. Bring to a boil to burn off a bit of the alcohol and then add the soy sauce. Stir to combine and turn off the heat.
Add your dashi to the pan containing the soy mixture, by pouring it through a sieve and pressing down on the solids to extract all flavor. Discard solids.
Decant your men tsuyu into a bottle or mason jar and put in the fridge to chill. This tastes wonderful with cold soba noodles but equally delicious poured over cold spinach sprinkled with a little grated ginger.