I’m preparing for a trip to Japan. I haven’t read about protocols to keep in mind whenever I’m on the Japan Railway, or where I’m supposed to take off my shoes. Or how to say “Could you please show me where is the bathroom?”… I did watch that very interesting video about the history of Japan… I’m putting all my hope in live-translation-apps, and all of the Ramen bars I have saved on my Google Maps, the rest is up to my partner and that’s how things are. Another way I prepare for a trip is eating dishes from the cuisine of the country I’m travelling to. That’s how I ended up making this today.
I don’t necessarily love rice noodles. I love using them as filling for fresh summer rolls. That’s pretty much it. I think it’s a consistency issue. They tend to be over slimy, which is a texture I’m not too crazy about. But, for some reason, this recipe wasn’t unbearable. In all honesty, I liked it! I always say that it doesn’t matter what you’re eating, as long as the produce is good quality and fresh. This was a really big factor in this dish because these rice noodles were in my pantry for months now. So, I said, “what the hell?!” I’m gonna enjoy these babies before the pantry worms do! And I enjoyed the fuck out of them.
They’re also pretty easy to make. Just strip your fridge from all the veggies you have in there. In my case, it was: carrots, peppers, oyster mushrooms, zucchini, garlic, cilantro, and fresh ginger.
After I cut up julienne style all the pretty veggies, I began to boil a pot of water for the rice noodles. Then, in a medium-sized cooking pan, I sautéd the garlic and ginger on a teaspoon of sesame oil. When it started to smell amazing, I added a dash fish oil because apparently, I have to ruin everything. Just kidding, but fish sauce smells terrible at first, like, really disgusting. I remember once my mom thought I was cooking with a rotten sauce because the stench coming from the kitchen was awful. After a few minutes, it doesn’t smell too bad. When it started to smell good again, I added half a squeeze of lemon (lime is also fine to use) and a tablespoon of soy sauce and a bit of sriracha. After that, the oyster mushrooms and zucchini.
As for the carrots and peppers, I left those babies raw because I love me some crunch in my food! You can sautée them if you like, this is all about personal taste and how you prefer things. Put the noodles to boil for about 5 minutes, they cook really fast!
After they’re boiled, remove them from the pot and add them to the bowl for presentation. I used the same water to boil the egg. And this is how everything turned out! A beautiful bowl of happy which I forgot to add the cilantro. Because I’m a dumdum sometimes.
This is how I mentally prepare for a trip. I have all the restaurants and places I want to go to saved, yes, I’m not a complete idiot. That’s my japlan (HAHA GET IT?!). I just don’t google what I’m not supposed to do, I trust my common sense and my fear of confrontation. I hope they will help me in random cases I might face. I’m purposely being ignorant so the culture clash is much stronger, that’s the type of person I am.
If anyone has any tip or recommendation for Japan, let me know! I’ll be mainly in Tokyo and Kyoto. I’m open to any type of cuisine (strange foods included!) and I’ll be blogging about it so, stay tuned! And thanks for reading this mumbojumbo.