Home Alone 4: Tuna, Sesame and Soba Noodle Salad

Sesame Marinated Tuna and Soba Noodle Salad


A mixed bag yesterday; signed a rental agreement for a flat in Granada, Spain… as pen was going to paper we heard that the sale of our flat in London had fallen through. Cool… that makes us something close to property tycoons. Firstly, because we have a nice weekend retreat from the city and secondly, because it will most likely wipe out all of our savings (maybe property typhoon is more appropriate).

To celebrate our new found lack of fortune, I cooked from Books for Cooks Vol. 4. This is the “glamorous” volume that we haven’t used too much. The recipe is originally from Kimiko Barber.

I took a trip to fishmongers on Northcote road to pick up the tuna for the recipe. The recipe calls for seared tuna, but I was in two minds given that I think tuna is best eaten raw. I am always intrigued as to whether there is a distinction between sashimi “worthy” tuna and the stuff that should only be cooked. The discussion with the fishmonger was of dubious merit:

steve: “do you reckon the tuna would be ok to have as sashimi?”
fishmonger: “eh?”
steve: “can I use it in sushi?”
fishmonger: “huh?”
steve: “like, uh, can I eat it raw?”
fishmonger: “yeah, sure… whatever”
steve: “how can you tell whether you can have the fish raw or not?”
fishmonger: [seemingly offended] “I’d never sell you bad fish”
steve: “yeah, yeah, I know you wouldn’t. Is there ever a time that you can’t eat tuna raw though?”
fishmonger: “eh, like when it ‘as gone off. It would ‘ave a ‘orrible smell and be all bluey black…”
steve: “ok, thanks”

We both left each other relieved to be out of the conversation.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 tuna steaks (not the ‘orrible, smelly kind)

For the noodles
250 g buckwheat soba noodles
3 spring onions (scallions)*
½ cucumber
2 tbsp blackened sesame seeds
½ tsp toasted sesame seed oil

1 lime

For the marinade
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp wasabi

1 tsp sake or dry sherry
2 tsp sugar

"pick up sticks" was my favourite game as a child. you can imagine how relieved I was to find out you could play it with dry soba noodles.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Put the noodles into the water. Bring back to the boil. Refresh with a glass of water. Books for Cooks explains that this cools the outside of the noodles and ensures that it doesn’t cook faster than the inside. Bring back to the boil and check the noodles are cooked through. If not, repeat the process. I was using some pretty old noodles (they were grey, so I assume they were soba), they had dried out a bit and required two cookings. Remove the noodles to a colander, rinse thoroughly with cold water. This will prevent further cooking. Put into a bowl with ½ tsp of the sesame oil. Cover and refrigerate.

Whisk the marinade ingredients together.

The fishmonger had left me in some doubt so I decided to err on the side of caution and sear the tuna. Heat a non-stick frying pan very hot. Sear on both sides (only 7-8 seconds per side). Remove to a shallow dish and pour the marinade over. Leave to cool.


You can use blackened sesame seeds or roast them yourself. I recommend that you roast them yourself. Heat the seeds in a frying pan. As they heat, their oils will come to the surface and they will start to clump together. Keep moving them, they give off an amazing smell. Wait until toasted and remove.

Peel the cucumber. Chop the peeled cucumber into matchsticks. Mix with the chopped scallions. Mix with majority of the sesame seeds. Add to the noodles.

For serving, pile the noodle salad up high. Use tongs. If you twist the tongs vertically into the bowl you’ll achieve good height of the salad. Chop the tuna into equal sizes and place on top of the salad. Spoon over the marinade. Garnish with remaining tsp of sesame seeds. The recipe suggested placing the cucumber peelings around the noodles, but this didn’t look great to me (I punished them by eating them). Put some lime wedges on the side.

It’s the perfect salad to calm the nerves and let you have a thought about innovative ways to take the burden of a London flat from you. Comments and financial recommendations welcome!

* For all those from overseas, spring onion is the UK name for green onions, which is the US name for scallions. Who is it hiding from???

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Green Tea Noodle Salad (or, how I got my comments back)

Green tea noodle salad


The comments on the blog have decreased of late. With unfailing confidence, I assume this is more a result of the content rather than the quality. With this in mind, I have come to the following conclusions and changes:
- Blame myself – are you mad? Never!
- Blame technology – I’ve removed my old friend the haloscan comments and moved onto simple blogger comments / blogger hack comments... see how they entice you.
- Leave Japan – I’ve left Japan now and will refocus my efforts on quality recipes rather than the more travel type writing of late.
- Quality recipes - I reckon that one is covered off below...

With no further ado – here is a salad from Peter Gordon’s “Salad”... appropriate name for the book. Peter is the chef at my favourite brunch restaurant; downstairs at Providores in London. This recipe appears more complicated than it is…

For the almonds
100 g almonds
1 tsp pimenton
1 tsp icing sugar
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp roasted sesame oil

Preheat the oven to 170 c. Almond skin is thought to have antioxidant properties (increase resistance of LDL to oxidation), therefore, it breaks my heart (get it?), but blanch the almonds (approximately 2 minutes in boiling water / freshen in cold water) to remove the skins. The reason for blanching seems to be that the skin is fibrous and somewhat bitter (comments or other suggestions welcome). A knife is useful to remove these. Mix with other ingredients. Line a baking tray with parchment and spread nuts out flat. Cook in oven for 10-15 minutes tossing occasionally. Leave out to cool and chop.

For the “main”
Green tea or Soba Noodles for 4 people
400 g pak choy
2 spring onions
300 g mushrooms
2 tbsp soy sauce
200 g firm tofu
2 tbsp flour
Vegetable oil for frying

Boil the noodles as appropriate – using cold water to refresh once cooked. Blanch the pak choy (we didn’t have any so just used cabbage) by plunging in boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and refresh. Sauté the mushrooms in a frying pan with some sesame oil, add soy sauce and take off the heat. Cut the tofu into cubes (1.5 cm). Press out the water using kitchen towel. Leave for 10 minutes. Coat with flour and fry in a few mm of oil until golden. Set all aside.

For the wasabi mirin dressing
1 tsp wasabi paste
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and pepper

The dressing is amazing! We didn’t have any wasbi paste, but made it from powder. Mix all ingredients and whisk in the oil prior to seasoning.

Peter goes the extra step to suggest how to present the food. Put half of the dressing into the noodles to marinate. Place the tofu, pak choy and mushrooms (individually) on a bed of noodles. Drizzle remaining dressing over. Finally put the almonds on top. Serve.

the caulifather

roasted cauliflower with caper crumbs salad

it started simply enough - a casual dinner with some friends. nothing fancy, it was a sunday evening so we'd do a couple of salads, roast chicken and dessert. i'm still too much of a novice to choose the menu so blancs suggested two salads from julie le clerc's excellent "more simple cafe food". i was on roasted cauliflower with caper crumbs duty ...



ingredients: 1 cauliflower, 1/2 cup roughly crumbled stale bread, 1/4 cup capers, 4 cloves garlic, crushed, 1/4 cup olive oil, 4tbsp chopped fresh parsley, 1/4 cup pinenuts, toasted, 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, sea salt and ground pepper

the instructions are very simple - roast the cauliflower, bread, capers, garlic and oil in a 170c oven for about 30 mins. heating has different effects on the flavour of cauliflower - flash boiling will maintain the flavours, but longer cooking will produce milder flavour or lingering smell of cabbage if prolonged. stir occasionally to ensure even cooking. remove to cool. mix in rest of ingredients and season to serve.

before i started into the research for this blog, i thought that this would be a fairly simple recipe with little info about the ingredients. they're all vegetables, not like the complex meat and fish that i would go on to write about. the further i dug into researching this the more i seem to uncover something strange afoot in the vegetable world. a cover-up that potentially goes to the heads of the great families of the vegetable kingdom...

similar to broccoli, cauliflower is part of the cabbage family. it was discovered in europe around the 16th century. arrested development of their flowers means that their flower tissues proliferate and accumulate into large masses. due to the immature nature of the flower, it is relatively unfibrous and can be pureed to a very creamy consistency. as with the onion family, you notice the strong flavour of the cabbage family when you chop it (mixing flavour and enzyme precursors together). when compared with other members of the family (e.g. brussels sprouts, white cabbage), cauliflower is one of the lowest in terms of relative amounts of sulfur pungency (flavour). interestingly, capers are in fact a distant relative of the cauliflower.

garlic, as part of the onion family and like cabbage, has a strong sulfury flavour. like the rest of onion family, it accumulates energy not in starch, but in fructose (long slow cooking produces sweetness. garlic has far more fructose than onions; this is illustrated in the stickiness when crushed and in how it dries out and browns during roasting or frying. baking and drying garlic has a similar effect to the cauliflower; the generation of trisulfides means that it tends towards the smell of overcooked cabbage. it also contributes sweetness (caramel) towards the overall dish. the best way to peel the garlic is to mash it with the broad side of a large nice in order to loosen the skin.

parsley is a member of the carrot family. it is best maintained in a towel in the fridge. elizabeth david says that parsley is the perfect foil for garlic.

most of the above was revealed by mcgee. it seemed unusual and stirred my intrigue. i thought about the facts for a moment ... we had a connection made between the cabbage and onion families; cauliflower and garlic would smell of cabbage if overcooked. furthermore, the seemingly benign comment that capers and cauliflower were in fact distant relations. david's comment about the parsley foil for garlic furthered my questions. could it be that there was more to this simple recipe than just taste and coincidence? a malicious collusion that went on between the big families of the vegetable world? if so, how long has this been going on? what other "simple" recipes are actually further signs of this conspiracy?

the further i read, the more the night seemed to close around me. usually innocent noises in the house seemed to take on a darker tone. i shook my head, went to get some air for a while and convinced myself that i must be imagining things. in order to discredit my fears i consulted some new research material; dornenburg and page's "culinary artistry". it was at that moment that my worst fears were confirmed. there, in black and white, on page 103; bread crumbs, garlic and parsley all feature as leading companions for cauliflower.

i'm going to submit this blog now before something happens to me. i have to get the truth out there. i'm afraid to go into the kitchen, those little cauliflowers seem to look at me with threatening eyes. i'm afraid of being followed ... i went to the gym and thought that i saw some parsley on the street behind me, i turned to see nothing ...