Tomato Somen

To beat the summer heat we often have cold noodles. Often soba or sōmen noodles with some iced tsuyu sauce. Tsuyu is made from soy sauce, mirin, and saké cooked with katsuobushi. It's a sweet and smokey soy sauce. It's a great dipping sauce for the noodles, but we are always looking for some variety and lately have made a cold tomato sauce for sōmen.

This first one above Shinji made by sautéing in a pan onions, red and yellow bell peppers, and eggplant in some olive oil and then adding tomatoes to the mixture. Then cooling the chunky tomato sauce in the fridge before serving. It's put over cold sōmen noodles and then topped with a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Very Italian in flavor and I'm sure this would also go well with cold angel hair pasta.

This second tomato sōmen dish is more Japanese. We saw it on NHK one night. Simply add tomatoes to tsuyu with some finely chopped shiso and ground, toasted sesame seeds. Very refreshing with the shiso and we loved the addition of the nutty sesame seeds. I think next time I'll add some chopped myōga.