Bhutan: Puta - Buckwheat Noodles
I think noodles are sublime. My go-to university late-night drunken snack of choice was Indomie mi goreng noodles and they were always absolutely fantastic. In fact, even if it wasn't late night, and even if I was sober, I still thought they were pretty bloody brilliant. I remember as a kid, sometimes if my mum really couldn't be bothered cooking dinner (which was rare), she'd let us have 'noodle soup' which was a big bowl of instant noodles that we didn't drain. We would stick an ice-cube into the middle of it to cook it down and slurp away happily. I honestly don't remember a time in my life where I didn't love noodles.
My partner doesn't really care much for noodles. Because of his allergies, he didn't grow up eating them, and he still stays far away from Asian food in general because he can't be sure that the dishes haven't been made with peanut oil, or sesame seeds. His opinion of noodles is that they are boring, unsatisfying, downgraded pasta. Maybe it's because he grew up in the UK with European food that is full of pasta, whereas I grew up in New Zealand with Asia just on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Similarly to Australia, New Zealand is a country of immigrants, and particularly immigrants from Asia who brought their culinary expertise (and deliciousness!) with them. So I grew up eating noodles.
Finding buckwheat noodles for this dish was a somewhere short of a nightmare. I visited three different shops in one day, and two of those same shops on previous days, trying to find them. There were rice noodles and egg noodles a plenty, but buckwheat noodles? No. Eventually I managed to find them right at the end of my tether - I figured that if I couldn't find them at this last shop, I'd have to cancel this dish from the menu for Bhutan. But thankfully by this point I realised all I needed to search for was soba noodles rather than buckwheat noodles, and then I found them. Thank goodness.
This was a fantastically easy dish to prepare. While my kewa datshi was simmering, and my momos were steaming, I whipped this dish up in about 5 minutes. Simply let the noodles boil for about 4 minutes, drain them, splash them with some cold water, and throw coriander, spring onions, red onion, and oil on top. Done.
I thought they were delicious. They were chewy, but not too chewy, and the coriander and spring onions tasted extremely fresh. I do wonder how many people reading this have an aversion to coriander (I know for sure that my brother thinks it's evil evil stuff, as does my best friend), but I don't mind it, and thankfully my partner has the same opinion. I thought the whole dish tasted of summer. And because it was so easy, I whipped up a second batch after dinner, in preparation for lunch the next day.
Plus, (and this is a huge bonus in my opinion), the green of the coriander and spring onions meant that this dish wasn't beige. A sad thing to be proud of, but proud I am nonetheless!
Puta - Bhutan's Buckwheat Noodles
Serves 2
Ingredients
My partner doesn't really care much for noodles. Because of his allergies, he didn't grow up eating them, and he still stays far away from Asian food in general because he can't be sure that the dishes haven't been made with peanut oil, or sesame seeds. His opinion of noodles is that they are boring, unsatisfying, downgraded pasta. Maybe it's because he grew up in the UK with European food that is full of pasta, whereas I grew up in New Zealand with Asia just on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Similarly to Australia, New Zealand is a country of immigrants, and particularly immigrants from Asia who brought their culinary expertise (and deliciousness!) with them. So I grew up eating noodles.
Finding buckwheat noodles for this dish was a somewhere short of a nightmare. I visited three different shops in one day, and two of those same shops on previous days, trying to find them. There were rice noodles and egg noodles a plenty, but buckwheat noodles? No. Eventually I managed to find them right at the end of my tether - I figured that if I couldn't find them at this last shop, I'd have to cancel this dish from the menu for Bhutan. But thankfully by this point I realised all I needed to search for was soba noodles rather than buckwheat noodles, and then I found them. Thank goodness.
This was a fantastically easy dish to prepare. While my kewa datshi was simmering, and my momos were steaming, I whipped this dish up in about 5 minutes. Simply let the noodles boil for about 4 minutes, drain them, splash them with some cold water, and throw coriander, spring onions, red onion, and oil on top. Done.
I thought they were delicious. They were chewy, but not too chewy, and the coriander and spring onions tasted extremely fresh. I do wonder how many people reading this have an aversion to coriander (I know for sure that my brother thinks it's evil evil stuff, as does my best friend), but I don't mind it, and thankfully my partner has the same opinion. I thought the whole dish tasted of summer. And because it was so easy, I whipped up a second batch after dinner, in preparation for lunch the next day.
Plus, (and this is a huge bonus in my opinion), the green of the coriander and spring onions meant that this dish wasn't beige. A sad thing to be proud of, but proud I am nonetheless!
Puta - Bhutan's Buckwheat Noodles
Serves 2
Ingredients
- 1 bundle (about 200g) dried buckwheat/soba noodles
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1/2 red onion, chopped finely
- 2-3 spring onions, chopped finely
- 1/4 cup coriander, chopped finely
Instructions
- Cook the noodles according to the package instructions (I cooked mine for 4 minutes in boiling water). Drain them and place into a serving bowl.
- Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and combine to mix.
- Serve!
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