Hi there
Wafu pasta (和風) which is japanese style pasta is one genius way of cooking pasta. They are lighter on the palate than some of the popular Italian recipes around, and with that dose of Japanese asian flavours in it, you can create many different pasta dishes.
You can add fish roe, seaweed, pork slices, mushrooms, and many other asian ingredients to this dish, very versatile and for the older generation, they also prefer this flavor as well. 🙂 This time round I have decided to use meihijiki.
Hijiki itself if a seaweed from japan, which has high dietary fibre and essential minerals, and it is good for health and beauty. You can use these for simmered dishes with soya sauce & japanese cooking wine, first look at it, and you might think it looks a bit strange, all short black strings of seaweed, but after cooking you can taste that subtle aroma from the seaweed, and I like how their texture like too, besides it is very easy to prepare too. 🙂
Because this wafu pasta does not come with a lot of sauce, you can cook this and leave it to eat and you won’t feel soggy at all, it is more like fried noodles. 🙂
Ingredients needed
- Hijiki x 1 table spoon
- Bacon x 100gram
- Straw mushrooms x 1 pack
- Vermicilli (which is the thinnier verison of spaghetti) x 4 person share
- Spring onions x 1 bunch, chopped
- Butter
- Ponzu (japanese citrus soya sauce, if you don’t have it, just soya sauce will do too)
Directions :
1) Boil the vermicelli in a pot of hot boiling water with a pinch of salt
2) Drizzle a little oil and sauteed the bacon until a little brown then throw in the mushroom and further sauteed for 1 min
3) Add the hijiki (after soaking with water for 5 mins, you can see the procedure below), mix it and then drop a spoon of butter.
4) Immediately pour in the cooked pasta and sauteed
5) After mixed all ingredients well for 1 min, pour in some citrus ponzu soya sauce or soya sauce, you can also add some japanese cooking wine as well. Taste to your likings and lastly sprinkle some spring onions before serving 🙂
The idea of wafu or japanese pasta is that it is light to the palate, serve in small portion, and of course be colorful, I like the black hijiki that create a nice contrast with the pink smoky bacon and also the green spring onions.
For the Hijiki, you can get it from Daiso, a large bag for $2, and what you do is that after soaking it into water, it will expand to about 5 times its original size.
Procedure before cooking
- Soak in tap water for 10 – 20 mins (which I usually have no patience to do) so I soak in hot water for only 3 – 5 mins and it turn out the same
- Sieve the water out and rinse several times with tap water to wash out any impurities and is ready to cook 🙂
Every seaweed is like a little package, it has a little chewiness and a subtle flavor of seaweed, so it is really nice to pair it with butter which compliments its flavors. 🙂
I paired my wafu pasta with wafu pizza, which is Japanese pizza, and it is such a nice combination. Even after pigging out with both pasta and pizza, you do not have that over indulged kind of feeling. 🙂 And if you choose your ingredients right, you can also make it a very hearty and healthy meal too. 🙂
I will still try out more wafu pasta recipes, so stay tune! 🙂
JAPANESE RECIPES : JAPANESE WAFU PASTA WITH MEIHIJIKI BACON AND MUSHROOM
Happy Cooking!
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Cheers,
Dawn