Classic Cold Soba

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups dashi
• 1/2 cup light soy sauce
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 8 ounces dried or fresh soba
• Accompaniments for the soba:
• 1 teaspoon wasabi, or to taste
• 3 ounces peeled and finely grated daikon
• 2 trimmed and finely chopped green onions
• 1 large sheet nori, cut into thin strips

Directions

1. Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sugar in a pot and bring them to a gentle boil over medium heat. Take the pot off the heat and leave the sauce to cool. Arrange 4 serving plates, then portion the wasabi, grated daikon and scallions evenly among them.
2. While the sauce cools, fill a 2-quart pot with water and bring it to a boil over high heat. Add the soba, let the water come back to a boil, and cook until the noodles are tender with a little firmness, 3 to 5 minutes. Set up a large bowl or pot of ice water nearby.
3. Lift the soba from the cooking water with a strainer. Transfer the noodles to the ice water and chill them until they are fully cold, then drain them.
4. Pile the noodles onto the plates. Pour the dipping sauce into small individual bowls and set them beside the noodles.
5. To eat, mix some daikon, wasabi and green onion into the dipping sauce. Pick up noodles with chopsticks and dip them into the sauce.