For many Japanese, somen is the go to food of choice for keeping the summer heat exhaustion blues away. These thin, white Japanese noodles that resemble vermicelli are traditionally made from wheat flour and served chilled.
But what do you do if a somen craving hits and you don’t have a full serving of mentsuyu, or noodle dipping sauce, on hand to eat them with? What if you’re tired or eating somen the traditional way? Or what if you’re in need of a little caffeine kick with your meal?
If you answered mix your noodle sauce with Starbucks coffee, congratulations! We’re stumped as to how our Japanese staff arrived at this weird food combination, but apparently it tastes much better than it sounds.
For those of you playing along at home, whipping up this curious dish is pretty easy! All you need is:
- Japanese somen noodles
- Starbucks coffee
- Mentsuyu noodle sauce
The directions are as simple as the ingredient list!
1. Boil the noodles.
2. While cooling the noodles, mix the noodle sauce with Starbucks coffee instead of water. Use the same amount of coffee as you would water according to the label of the bottle of noodle sauce.
3. Dip the noodles in sauce and eat!
We know all of you must be wondering about the taste. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t leave you hanging! Six members of our Japanese writing staff volunteered as tributes for the RocketNews24 Hunger Games this cooking experiment, and we’ve got some of their reactions and comments below.
▼ Meg was the one who told us about the recipe, so it’s only fair she’s first to try it out.
▼ “Not bad!”
▼ P.K. decides it’s safe to give it a try next.
▼ “Not bad at all.”
▼ Time for Go to give it a go, go, go!
▼ “…!! Well, I can’t say I hate it♪” (But with that face, is he really telling the truth?!)
▼ You didn’t think we’d leave Mr. Sato out of such an important experiment, did you? According to him, the flavor left something to be desired.
Initially the coffee had a bitter twang to it, but somehow didn’t seem to clash with the noodle sauce. Our writers said they could even savor the taste of bonito stock from the sauce mid-way. Just when they thought the coffee flavor had lost out, they were hit with a roasted aroma sort of aftertaste.
Four out of six in our editorial department said it passed the test, which was a much better result than expected! Now that we’re getting into July and the summer heat is really starting to set in, you might find yourselves thanking us later for this new take on the traditional Japanese somen recipe.
Photos ©RocketNews24
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