Better living through chemistry

I wasn't going to post today, The Exam to End All Exams (until August) being tomorrow and all, but the god-given gift that is 5-hour Energy* has convinced me otherwise.

This is cold soba with egg noodles (that is, noodles made of egg) sprinkled with sesame seeds and ginger powder, with a side dish of cucumber and mango marinated in lime, cilantro, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce. The soba I acquired comes in these neat little bundles, each of which is about twice as much soba as I should be eating (even for two meals). It sort of made me sad to have to cook half a bundle, because man, if I were actually cooking for two, that would be so damn convenient!

To make egg noodles, one simply
makes a thin egg crepe...

...and cuts it into strips (that break under
their own weight when dangled off
your hand, as I discovered here).

The dipping broth is the marinating liquid for the cucumber and mango plus a little miso broth.

N.b. While rinsing pasta will bring the collective ghost of Italian grandmothers down on your head Fruma-Sarah style, it is proper to rinse soba with cold water after it's boiled. If you don't rinse until that floury odor and texture are gone, the noodles will gum up and get this unpleasant mouthfeel, although the taste won't change.

*I refuse to believe it's just vitamin B and caffeine in those sinister little bottles. It's probably some Lewis Carroll-generated concoction that shows us how buzzed the rabbit can get.