This is my version of a dish prepared by Lori Hashimoto, owner of Hana Japanese Eatery.
It appears on her menu as Hiyashi Chuka, and I’ve made slight modifications due to allergies my wife has.
Hiyash Chuka is a chilled ramen noodle salad served in the summer, topped with colorful cold ingredients and a sweet soy vinegar dressing.
Noodles can be cold ramen noodles, cold rice noodles or yan noodles. This would also be good with VERY THIN egg noodles, although that’s more western than Japanese.
- Use a traditional cucumber with the seeds removed, or an English cucumber.
- Use a zester-grater or simply a peeler to remove some of the cucumber skin, leaving enough green for color.
- Cut the cucumber into thin six inch pieces
- Cut thin sliced deli ham and roll it into a “cigar”
- Cut the ham so that you end up with multiple thin strips.
- For my wife, I will be using thinly sliced turkey
- Prepare your ramen noodles for cooking. Fresh is better. Loosen them so that when they hit the boiling water they will separate from one another. Then cook for 7-8 minutes.
- Beat two eggs together in a mixing bowl.
- Using a preheated teflon saute pan with a bit of EVOO, pour 1/3 of the egg mixture into the pan, and tilt pan to spread the egg across the bottom creating a thin crepe.
- Once liquid is gone, slide it out of the pan to cool. Prepare two more crepes.
- Drain your cooked noodles and shock them in an ice bath, then set them aside.
- Prepare your dressing. Combine in a mixing bowl:
- 1/2 C vinegar
- 1/4 C soy sauce
- 1/2 C sugar
- 2 TBL lemon juice
- 1 TBL sesame seed oil
- Whisk all together and heat in a sauce pan just until it all comes to a boil.
- Pour into a glass bowl and refrigerate for using later
- Prepare your egg crepes
- Roll them into one large tight cigar
- Using your knife, cut thin strips off the cigar and then separate the strands.
- All of the above steps can be done an hour or two ahead of time. When you are ready to serve, plate the ingredients
- Put a pile of your cold noodles in the center of your plate
- Decorate with cucumber spears spaced north, south, east and west.
- Add 1/4 each of ham just to the left of each pile of cucumber spears
- Add 1/4 each of your egg strips to the right of each pile
- You can also add color by using extremely thin slices of red bell pepper
- Top with red salted ginger in the center
- Pour on dressing
- Add thin strips of roasted cut dried seaweed and toasted sesame seeds
