Soba Noodle

The Japanese are renowned for their longevity. As of 2011, their average life expectancy was 82.3 years. (The United States came in fiftieth, at 78.4 years.) Researchers often credit their diet, and this soup is my way of cramming as much of their healthy cuisine into a bowl as possible. It's called Bento Box Soup because of the traditional Japanese take-out bento box lunch, which is full of compartments, each containing a tasty treat: fish or meat, rice, pickled or cooked veggies, and other goodies. The base is a miso broth; if you're not in the know about miso, it's a salty fermented soy product that aids digestion and improves immune function. In case white miso isn't available, use any mellow (light) miso. I kicked those healing properties up a notch by infusing green tea into the broth for an extra immune boost, then added shiitakes, spinach, kombu, scallions, and tamari.

When the heat is on, there’s no better way to cool down than with a bowl of chilled noodles. To make this truly vegetarian and vegan friendly, seek out a ponzu sauce without dashi, an ingredient made with dried fish. Two brands worth considering are Marukan and Wan Ja Shan. For die-hard meat eaters, add some thin slices of cold beef.

We like vegetarian mains in summer; for a heartier dish, add shredded rotisserie chicken or sliced grilled steak.

In these vegetarian rolls, shredded cabbage adds cancer-fighting betacarotene; nori—sheets of dried seaweed—supplies calcium, magnesium, and iron; and shiitakes boost the immune system, thanks to the active compound lentinan. Look for soba noodles and nori in the Asian foods section of your grocery store.

Traditional Japanese soba noodles can be made of wheat or buckwheat, a fruit seed related to rhubarb that’s loaded with manganese and the antioxidants quercetin and kaempferol. Because the seed is also gluten free, buckwheat noodles are a good choice for those with gluten sensitivities.

Here’s a spicy noodle dish that’s packed with vegetables; covering the pan during cooking helps trap the steam so the vegetables soften more quickly (and retain their nutrients). Look for soba noodles made entirely of buckwheat flour; besides being gluten-free, they are more nutritious than soba made from whole-wheat flour.

Drain the noodles well before coating with sauce.

Look for soba noodles in the Asian section of your supermarket.

Crunchy and colorful, this is an appealing presentation for cold Asian noodles.

One of my favorite things about Paris—after the museums, the streetscapes, the Seine, the style, the beauty, and so on—is the green beans. Yes, you read that right. Parisian green beans are ubiquitous, and always served perfectly ripe and tender-crisp. Here at home, perfect green beans seem to be available only for a month or so in the summer. This dish is a nice way to highlight them during that brief window; however, I’m so fond of it that I use frozen green beans so I can make this regularly. I highly recommend using organic whole baby green beans, if you can find them; otherwise, French-cut beans will do.

This dish has proven a big hit in my home. You can get all the ingredients in the Asian foods section of any well-stocked supermarket or natural foods store.

Make the Pork Tenderloin with Sautéed Apples and Leeks on page 205, and then use the extra roasted tenderloin in one of these recipes (page 206)—one with Asian flavors, one with Mexican.

There’s no need to boil the noodles separately; here, they are cooked in the savory broth that serves as the base of this soup. Look for soba noodles in the Asian-food or pasta section of the grocery store. If you can’t find them, use whole-wheat spaghetti instead.

FLAVOR BOOSTERS The bracing combination of fresh lime juice and mint adds minimal calories and not a trace of fat, yet tastes out of this world. Scallions, cucumber, and chopped peanuts up the flavor ante while also adding crunch. Soba noodles, made from buckwheat, are nuttier than those made from wheat.

FLAVOR BOOSTER With its tangy flavor and crumbly texture, a little feta cheese goes a long way. Use it to add oomph to salads such as this one, which is bulked up with cucumber, cabbage, shallot, and fresh parsley.

Where the sesame sauce in the recipe on page 532 makes for a rich, hearty dish, this one is elegant and light. In Japan—where it gets plenty hot in the summer—cold soba noodles, served with a dipping sauce, are a common snack or light meal. Soba are brown noodles, made from wheat and buckwheat, and the sauce is based on dashi, the omnipresent Japanese stock. (You can also serve somen, thin wheat noodles, cold; cook them for a little less time, but also until tender.) Dashi is close to essential here, though you can use chicken stock in a pinch. But dashi is so easy to make (and so good) that if you try it once you’ll become devoted to it.

Here’s an unusual dish: a grand cold soup that is essentially a whole meal. (You might, if you have the inclination and want to be wholly authentic, serve with Kong Namul, page 182; Black Beans with Soy, page 432; or other panchan.) Pickle the cucumber and daikon in advance if you can or substitute kimchi. Though this dish contains some chiles, it is not meant to be blazing hot, so use mild long red chiles if you can find them or the more common long green (Italian frying, or Anaheim) peppers.