Japanese Noodley Goodness

Yes, today I am sharing a recipe. Lets say right up front though that this is not my creation, I was taught this a few years ago by my most gorgeous sister Junko and it has been a summer BBQ and 'taking a pot luck dish' staple.

I guess you would call it a noodle salad and I guess you would call it some kind of asian fusion - if we really wanted to categorise it in western terms.

But really it is the simpliest and tasties and quickest noodle dish around. I recently made it for a Christmas Eve party and was instructed that this must go on my blog. Yes, it is THAT amazing!
There are only a few ingredients you need:

- 1 packet of udon or soba noodles (soba is the preference but udon works just as well) - about 270g. Here is the brand I normally use:

- 1 pottle of good quality basil pesto (250g)

- approx 1-2 tbsp of olive oil

- any green vegetables you like, in whatever quantity you like (snow peas, baby spinach, broccoli, green beans, zucchini etc)

- approx 1/2 - 1 cup of special Japanese sauce (photo below so you can find it in the supermarket, usually in the international foods section).

So there you go, ingredients sorts. Now for the preparation:

- Prepare your vegetables to be steamed/blanched and put a large pot of water on to boil. In this case I just used what I had - some zucchini from out of my garden:

- Mix the pottle of pesto with the Japanese sauce. How much sauce to add is really based on taste and consistency. I like it to be like a fairly thick dressing with a distinctive taste of the sauce. So start with half a cup and add more as required after tasting it. As your adding more sauce it also helps to add a little olive oil to just bring the sauce together - again, just go by instinct.

- Add the noodles to the pot of boiling water and cook as per the packet instructions. Now for the vegetables, you have two options; either steam them separately until they are just al dente or add them to the noodles in the last couple of minutes of cooking time (add them dependent on their size and time required to cook). If using spinach, this can just be tossed through after cooking. I'm lazy and I like to just add them to the same pot as the noodles.

- Drain and noodles and veges and run them under cold water until they have cooled to room temperature.

- Add the sauce to the noodles and veges and stir through.

There you have it, my noodle wisdom has been shared.