Soba with Oriental Mushrooms

Today's lunch recipe is courtesy of Jan 08 Shape magazine. I had always wonder what I can do with soba besides making it into cold noodles. They taste great but after a whole morning "soaking" in the cold dry air-con in office, I am not that keen to have cold noodles for lunch. So when I saw this recipe, I was very keen to give it a try. After all, the ingredients are pretty simple to buy and prepare and the cooking does not require lots of complicated steps. And so here it is!

Soba with oriental mushrooms (Serves 2)
Ingredients
70g soba
50g shimeji mushrooms
50g oyster mushrooms, sliced
4 big shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
100ml vegetable/chicken stock (I used chicken stock cubes and dissolve them in hot water instead)
1 tbsp sake
2 tbsp olive oil
Splash of soy sauce
Chilli powder

Garnishing
1 tomato, diced
Black sesame seeds
Parsley or chives, chopped

Method
1. Cook soba until al dente, then drain and set aside for use later.
2. Heat up olive oil in non-stick pan and saute the garlic and mushrooms.
3. When the mushrooms starts to wither, add sake, soy sauce and vegetable stock. Let the mushrooms continue to cook till it's fairly dry.
4. Add soba, chilli powder and toss together.
5. Top with chopped tomato, black sesame seed and parsley.

I really like this recipe. It is a very light dish with nice mushroom fragrance as you eat the soba. Great for those vegetarians as there is no meat in it. For those who is not a fan of mushrooms, this might not be the dish you want to cook though. I will definitely cook this again although I will reduce the cooking time for the soba. They were a bit too soft for my liking. And I will not toss all the garnishing into the soba the next round. Just sprinkle them on top and I am sure it will improve the visual effect of this dish. :)