When the summer heat becomes too much, Mr. A does not want
to cook and eat hot meals. He and Mrs. A
would eat cool food like stone fruits, ears of corn, tomatoes, potato salad and
cold noodle.
An example of a cold noodle dish is tomato ramen. The raw ramen noodle (nama ramen) and soup base are from their favorite ramen producer,
Amochinmi in the tiny seaport of Tomonoura, Fukuyama. The ramen noodle has a red tint as it
contains tomato. Tomato puree has also
been added to the basic chicken and soy sauce soup base.
The preparation is simple and quick:
- Cut up some cherry tomatoes (Mr. A used a colorful mix of red, orange and green ones); pick some mint leaves; set them aside.
- Cut up some meat into slivers (Mr. A happened to have some Canadian bacon on hand; but anything like chashu, chicken or ham would do; clams, shrimps or squids would be even better); set aside.
- Cook the nama ramen in boiling water for a minute and half; immediately put it in an ice bath; drain when noodle is cold.
- Mix the soup base with cold water.
- Assemble the cold ramen bowl by placing the drained ramen into the soup, add meat, tomato halves, mint leaves, and serve.
