In 2003, I had my first som tam salad in Bangkok’s searing 30-degree heat. It was crunchy and packed to the rafters with flavour, but, more importantly, it was cold. Until then, I’d been eating hot food in hot weather, but ever since I’ve been chasing that perfect cold summer meal. These cold hiyashi ramen come close for me. They’re ludicrously versatile (think salad plus sauce plus noodles), and the only “cooking” to be done is boiling the noodles; the rest is chopping, blending (the sauce) and assembling. It is truly summertime where the living is easy.
Sweetcorn hiyashi
If you have fresh corn cobs, boil them for five minutes, then drain, cool in cold water and slice the kernels off the cob.
Prep 10 min
Cook 35 min
Serves 4
8 spring onions (100g), trimmed and washed thoroughly
8 tbsp good-quality neutral oil – I like rapeseed oil
2½ tsp light soy sauce, plus 1 tbsp extra for the sweetcorn sauce
2 tsp white-wine vinegar
200g sweetcorn kernels, fresh (see introduction) or frozen
1½ tbsp white miso
1 garlic clove, peeled
2cm x 2cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
300g dried ramen or soba noodles
½ large cucumber (180g), cut in half widthways, then finely shredded
100g cherry tomatoes, halved
250g smoked tofu, cut into batons
20g basil leaves, roughly torn
Put the spring onions on a board and chop, chop, chop the greens and whites, running the knife over them over and over again to turn them into tiny fragments. Scrape the chopped onions into a bowl, add four tablespoons of the oil, two and a half teaspoons of soy sauce and the white-wine vinegar, then put to one side.
Put three quarters (150g) of the sweetcorn kernels in a blender, add the miso, garlic, ginger, the extra tablespoon of soy sauce, the remaining four tablespoons of oil and 100ml water, and blitz: you’ll need to blend it for quite a while to break down the fibre of the sweetcorn.
Cook the noodles according to the packet instructions, then drain and rinse under the cold tap until cool. Drain really well, then put in a bowl, add the spring onion mix and toss very well to coat.
Distribute the noodles between four plates or shallow bowls. Spoon a quarter of the sweetcorn sauce to one side of each portion, and next to it arrange a quarter of the cucumber, tomatoes, smoked tofu and the reserved whole corn kernels. Scatter over the torn basil leaves and eat.