Tororo Soba (Slimy soba noodles with grated nagaimo)

This is not a full recipe per se, since I’ve already written out the instructions for making the components previously, but rather a how-to. It’s a cold soba noodle dish that may be a bit unusual for most people, unless you grew up in a Japanese household or have lived here for some time. (There are also regional and individual preferences for this kind of dish.) Basically it’s cold soba noodles served with a big dollop of grated raw nagaimo, which is very slimy and slippery. People usually either love it or hate it, as with other well loved slimy foods in Japan such as okra and natto [1]. (See the Slimy slimy bowl of goodness [2].)

In any case, this is a nice refreshing dish that, well, slides down easily, that is great when the weather is not too cold. I cannot guarantee you will love it, but I hope you give it a try if you are adventurous!

Recipe of sorts: Tororo soba

Basically, follow the recipe for cold soba noodles with dipping sauce [3].

The soba in this case is 100% soba or buckwheat flour soba, but any kind of good soba will do. (100% buckwheat soba is rather stiff and a bit chewy when cooked.)

You also need a good bowl of grated nagaimo, or tororo. Nagaimo makes some people get itchy if they handle it, though in most cases they can eat it without any ill effects. See how to handle nagaimo in my okonomiyaki instructions [4]. For 3 to 4 people, you’ll need about 2 cups of grated nagaimo.

As condiments, you should have some chopped green onion, shredded shiso leaves, perhaps some grated fresh ginger.

Lay out the soba noodles on a flat soba serving sieve or seiro (use a colander if you don’t have one of these), put out the bowl of tororo and a small plate of condiments. Put some dipping sauce in small bowls or little soba serving containers called sobachoko. Each person puts some soba and tororo in their bowls with condiments. Here’s my stepfather serving himself a good dollop of tororo. Yep, it’s sliiimy!

Here’s how a serving of tororo soba looks like.

Repeat the procedure until you’re full. Delicious!

Note: if you get a bit itchy around your mouth from the tororo, just rinse it off with plain water.

Yes, I know, Japanese people love slime. What can I say…. ^_^;

(I’ve made this my contribution to the Twitter #twitterfoodparty (this time it’s a #twitterpastaparty). You can follow my general tweeting at @makiwi [5], or Just Hungry and Just Bento site updates on @justbento [6].)