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Frozen soba

I don't buy frozen foods or processed foods but when I came back from France, I found a bag of frozen soba noodles in the fridge and some instant miso soup mix. Ahhh, c'est la vie. Everybody's got to eat.  These frozen noodles are precooked so it's a no brainer for someone like my husband, Sakai, who doesn't like to cook.  They just need to be reheated in boiling water.  Flavor? Let's see.  I am going to make some for lunch.

The Packaging 

There are 4 servings in a package.  This brand was made in Japan.  Although it says Japanese Soba in Japanese, the main ingredient is wheat.  This is quite misleading but it happens a lot with commercially prepared frozen and dried soba noodles.  According to a Japanese law that is still in tact, Japanese noodle producers can call noodles soba, so long as it contains 30% buckwheat.   

I had some homemade Kaeshi (Here is the link for the Kaeshi recipe) so I knew I would have good soup to go with the noodles.  In case you are not familiar, Kaeshi is a dipping broth concentrate made of mirin, soysauce and sugar. It keeps in room temperature for a couple months so I always have some around.  

To make the noodle broth, I mix the Kaeshi concentrate with fresh dashi broth (here is the link for the Dashi recipe).  Figure about 7%-10% Kaeshi for the broth.  For the topping, I sauteed some pork belly slices with onions and scallions. 

When it comes to Soba served in a hot broth, Kake soba, some soba experts say the soup is what really makes the difference, not the noodles.  The good soup improved the flavor of these noodles but the noodles lacked the "koshi" - texture and fragrance of buckwheat. Frozen noodles have a long way to go. What it needs is definitely more buckwheat.  I am sticking to fresh homemade soba, even though there is more labor involved.