#cold food

Picked eggplants and mini tomatoes at backyard, so made a hiyamugi noodle with it.

Microwave chopped egg plants covered with plastic wrap, then cool and squeeze water. Chop mini tomatoes. Mix them with shredded myoga, grated ginger, mentsuyu (soy-sauce-based ready-made dipping sauce for Japanese noodles), and sesame oil. I recommend to make a little bit stronger with concentrated mentsuyu and water (I had only straight one so adjusted stronger with usukuchi soy sauce, shirodashi, and mirin).

Put noodles into boiling water. Recently, I just happened to know it doesn’t boil over if you cross long chopsticks on the pan. Boil for five minutes, cool and wash with cold water, and strain well.

Put noodles in a glass bowl and add the seasoned egg plants and mini tomatoes with sauce.

Somen or Hiyamugi
http://www.mitoku.com/products/pasta/someofhiyamugi.html
The noodle diameter is somen < hiyamugi << udon. Somen and hiyamugi are mainly for summer.

Mentsuyu recipe
http://www.japanesecooking101.com/men-tsuyu-recipe/
In case if you live where you cannot obtain mentsuyu at supermarket.

Myoga (flower buds of a certain kind of ginger)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myoga
Summer herb, or fresh condiment. It’s often used as topping for tofu, miso soup, and many other dishes. It might taste peculiar for the first time, but it’s essential for Japanese summer cuisine. Though I hated when I was little, now it’s my favorite.

庭で茄子とミニトマトが採れたので、ぶっかけの冷麦にする。

切った茄子をラップをかけてチンし、冷まして水気をしぼり、刻んだ茗荷とおろし生姜、麺つゆと胡麻油で和える。麺つゆは希釈タイプで濃い目に作った方が良い（ストレートタイプしかなかったので薄口醤油・白だし・みりんで少し濃い目に調整）。茹でて冷やした冷麦と和える（鍋に菜箸を渡しておくと吹きこぼれない、ということを最近知った）。