Soba, udon, vermicelli, Maggi noodles, spaghetti —there isn’t a noodle out there that doesn’t feel at home in a cold summer salad with crisp vegetables and a bracing dressing to bring it all together. With the new Malamala Beach Club opening very soon, cold noodle salads are on my mind as I contemplate a dish that is just as luxuriating as chilling out on a daybed listening to Spotify tunes enjoying tropical island fruit potions under the lunchtime sun.
For some, the idea of eating cold noodles may be a bit strange, but it’s a light dish that combines a midday ingestion of nutritional raw vegetables with enough mass to satisfy a growling tummy.
The Chinese
invented noodles
Cold noodle dishes are popular in China, Japan and throughout South East Asia, no doubt for their medicinal power and refreshing attributes. It’s probably the reason most recipes come from those countries because according to historians, the Chinese invented noodles!
In a National Greographic news report (October 12, 2005), a 4000-year-old bowl of noodles was found in China. It suggests an Asian, not Italian-origin for the staple dish.
At the Lajia archaeological site in north-western China, beautifully preserved, long, thin yellow noodles were found inside an overturned sealed bowl. It was apparently buried under three metres of sediment.
There’s been much debate on who invented noodles or long pasta first, the Chinese, Arab or Italian cooks. Up until this discovery, some historians suggested that noodles were first made in the Middle East and introduced to Italy by the Arabs, but a 6000-year-old bowl of noodles put that debate to rest.
Credit where credit is due, it was the Italians are who should be credited for popularising the food in Europe and spreading it around the world.
Dressed to kill
The sauce to any dish is the pièce de résistance, but a dressing in a salad must be bold and striking — a dressing to die for.
Let’s face it the salad ingredients, while crisp, fresh and full of medicine, they can be quite boring and tasteless. They are, after all, made up of majority water!
But when you add cold noodles into the mixing bowl, the flavours and texture must be out of this world to be considered a great salad.
In many Asian recipes, cold noodles are prepared with a tangy sauces consisting of aromatic sesame paste, garlic and fresh herbs, or a sweet and sour vinaigrette with or without the pungent Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce. Peanuts and fried Asian shallots (from Chinese shops) are also common and add a nice crunch to the dish.
There’s something magic about toasted sesame seeds with noodle salads, like eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches – they are a match made in heaven.
Which noodle do you love best?
Ramen noodles
For most Fijians they’d probably say Maggi or Chow noodles are their favourite, and two billion Chinese and Hong Kongese would probably agree.
Last year, ramen cup noodles were served 97.5 billion times globally according to World Instant Noodles Association. Yes, there is an official association for instant noodles!
China and Hong Kong are the biggest consumers who slurp these soupy noodles that were invented in Japan in 1958 just after World War II. The product that becomes ready to eat just in two minutes by adding boiling water was dubbed “a magic ramen”, and became an instant popular sensation.
Ramen noodles, without the unhealthy and salty soup sachet, are cheap and easy to create a cold noodle salad at home. The trick is to not overcook the noodles and refresh them immediately ice cold water. Then toss with your favourite vegetables and eye-popping dressing with the noodles to create a quick and instant noodle salad.
Spaghetti
Spaghetti is definitely underrated when it comes to cold pasta salads and that’s a shame because it deserves more attention as there’s nothing like a bowl of chilled pasta on a hot day.
When I open a new packet of spaghetti, fettuccine or any shape of pasta, I usually cook the entire bag so I have leftovers to make a hot or cold pasta the next day.
A plain leafy salad for lunch can leave you yearning for something more but the addition of Italian-style pasta makes it more filling especially if it has a sauce of extra virgin olive oil, fresh tomatoes, aromatic herbs, chilli and garlic.
However spaghetti is not just for Italian dishes. Hot or cold, the long tubular pasta works well with just about any sauce.
Next time you have leftovers, mix a creamy pasta dressing of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, honey, Parmesan cheese, garlic and a touch of dried Italian herb seasoning.
It’s sweet and tangy all at the same time and complements every single thing in the salad.
Soba noodles
While the Italians were making spaghetti popular in the West, the Japanese had soba noodles. Made from buckwheat flour, they are said to have originated in China and brought to Japan as far back as 300 BCE. That’s over 2300 years ago.
There are records of buckwheat flour, from which soba noodles are made, being grown to help fight a famine. Buckwheat is a highly nutritious grain rich in vitamin B.
Complex B vitamins help your body make energy from the food you eat and form red blood cells, so you can see the appeal of anything made with buckwheat including soba noodles. Some people take vitamin B to increase energy, enhance mood, improve memory, boost skin and hair health, and stimulate the immune system.
The skin of the grain is used to give the flour its unique flavour and brownish appearance, giving them an earthy taste that complements many Asian dressings especially toasted sesame sauce.
Udon noodles
The Japanese cousin-brother of soba is a more thicker white wheat noodles which I love called udon. They are great in soup but chilled udon noodles are also popular during hot days.
Chilled udon noodles are served with various toppings, such as grated fresh ginger, nori (dried seaweed), chopped green onion, wasabi, sesame seeds, and just about anything Asian.
If you’ve never tried udon, the attraction lies more in their texture and elasticity; kind of like eating chewy noodles. You can buy them from Chinese shops already cooked and vacuum sealed in packets, so they are super easy to use and prepare hot or cold.
Vermicelli
While udon are thick, vermicelli noodles are mostly angel hair thin. Spanning across many regions of the world, the thin noodles have so many variations that its origins are unclear.
In Indian cuisine it appears in paaysaam; in Somalia it is used in a sweet dish of butter and cardamom called cadriyad; rati in Bologna and minutelli in Venice, Italy.
The Chinese use green mung bean to produce the transparent bean vermicelli which appears in many Chinese New Year good luck dishes and have a texture reminding me of shark fin soup I ate as a kid.
In cold noodle salads, rice noodle vermicelli are perfect in South East Asian dishes like bun bo xao, a zesty Vietnamese stir-fry of marinated beef hot from the wok on a bed of room temperature rice noodles.
No matter what type of noodle you use, cold noodle salads are just as home in Fiji, with our sultry tropical weather, plus they’re a good reason to eat more raw vegetables to combat non-communicable diseases.
So which cold noodle salad have I selected for Malamala Beach Club? Try bibim guksu — the spicy Korean chilled noodle and vegetable salad.
* Lance Seeto is the executive chef for Fiji’s first and soon to open island beach club, Malamala Beach Club www.malamalabeachclub.com
