Product Name: Nissan Frozen Kamodashi Soba, 195g
Store Purchased: TNT Supermarket (see my links for website and information)
Price: $1.99 CDN (on sale)
Ingredients: wheat flour, buckwheat flour, egg powder, salt, wheat, soy sauce, sugar, duck flavour, duck oil, bonito, sake, hydrolysis protein, yeast, amino acid, alcohol, colour
Used for: Sidedish
Review:
Nissan frozen soba can be eaten cold or hot. This product is frozen soba imported from Japan. Nissan also sells several other flavours (shoyu and miso), combined with frozen ramen. The packaging is in japanese only, but the instructions are: boil 300ml of water, add noodles and cook for 2 min. At this point, you can either consume them hot by adding the sauce packet to the water or cooling the noodles under a stream of ice water and dunking the noodles in the sauce.
Broth
I was taken aback by the intensity of the broth. It would even go as far to say it far supasses that of Konnichi-wa on Baldwin St (31 Baldwin. 416-593-8538) and any other noodle houses I have tried (konnich-wa purists: please dont hunt me down and "take me out" for these comments). The sauce packet contains frozen little duck fat gobules. What could better than that???! The rich duck flavour is reminiscent of chinese cured ham and duck, flavoured with a hint of bonito and sake. With 300ml of water, I find it a tad bit salty, so one can choose to use 350ml to water down the broth.
Soba
The soba noodle are much better than the dried ones often sold in the grocery stores and brought to your table at chinese or korean run japanese restaruants. I have heard miracles of the fresh soba sold at Hiro-san's on Special Soba Sundays, but I have yet to try it. Their soba is supplied by SobaCanada (www.sobacanada.com), which is operated out of Mississauga, ON. SobaCanada also conducts soba making classes and can even even make soba right in front of you at your next event to serve to your guests. The Nissan frozen soba itself is more "edo" style, meaning lighter and thinner. The flavour of the buckwheat is not very strong and, sadly, masked by the incredibly deep, rich broth.
It's a great introductory soba, for people not accustomed to full-flavoured soba and prefer the nice rich broth.
All in all, it is no comparison to fresh made soba, but far surpasses dried soba for flavour and texture, and fresh soba for convenience and price (approx. $20CDN at Hiro Sushi). In ther future, I would consider separating the broth from the soba, eating the soba with a simple shoyu sauce and green onions, and using the broth as a base for wintermelon soup.
