Yamagata-Style Cold Meat Soba Made with Chicken Thighs and a Microwave: Ryuji on How to Chill It and How to Firm Up the Noodles

As Ryuji explains, Yamagata has long had a local specialty called cold meat soba, and the meat is chicken. Cooking the chicken, chilling it, and eating it with cold soba is a popular way to enjoy it there, he says. Ideally he would use mature hen, but hen meat is rarely sold in ordinary supermarkets, so this time he uses thighs from young chicken. Ryuji also reveals that although he has been to Yamagata, he never once had a chance to eat a meal there.

The guideline is 100g per serving, and since this is for two servings, he uses about 200g of chicken thigh. When A-ko asks, "About 350g?", Ryuji replies that you don't need that much. He says it's fine to use more meat, though.

Because this is a cold dish, the chicken is cooked first. You can't serve it hot, so it needs time to cool. Put the chicken in a heatproof container or a donburi bowl, add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 teaspoons of sugar, and massage them in well. For one serving, 1½ tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of sugar will do. Regular soy sauce is fine. As for why sugar goes in, Ryuji explains that the broth for cold meat soba is on the sweet side.

When A-ko asks whether he isn't seasoning the meat first, Ryuji replies that it's less a pre-seasoning than a liquid that will later become the soba broth as is. Cooking the chicken the way you would make chashu transfers the chicken's umami into the soy sauce. Ryuji says he chose the microwave because "it's easy."

Heat at 600W for 3 minutes 30 seconds, or about 2 minutes 30 seconds for one serving. Even after heating ends, don't take the container out right away; leave it in the microwave and let the residual heat cook it through. Leaving it for 3 to 5 minutes lets the heat penetrate slowly for just the right doneness, he says. If you're worried, you can heat it longer, but Ryuji says this level of heating leaves the meat more tender.

Ryuji says viewers often comment on how he cooks chicken, and he shared his view. Even karaage or chicken steak can look red inside, but stove output and how well a frying pan conducts heat differ from home to home. It also varies between induction and gas, so you can't make a blanket statement like "cook it for X minutes and it's safe." That's why, in Ryuji's view, you need to learn to judge doneness yourself.

Chicken can look red even when it's cooked, so color isn't reliable. The easiest way to judge is whether the inside is hot; if you touch it and it's hot all the way through, it's fine, he says. As a standard, Ryuji cited a core temperature of 75°C for 1 minute, or 70°C for 3 minutes.

He had planned on 5 minutes this time, but Ryuji said, "I'm bad at waiting," and took it out a little early. The cut surface still showed some redness, but the inside was very hot to the touch, and A-ko also touched it to confirm the heat. Ryuji explained that this meant it had reached the standard temperature and was cooked through.

The cooking liquid left in the container is full of chicken umami, so it goes into the broth. Prepare two bowls and divide the liquid evenly, a little over 1 tablespoon each. Add chicken stock powder to that. Ryuji stressed that he uses regular chicken stock, not paitan (white) stock, which tastes completely different.

For dashi, he adds three pinches (about 3g) of Ryuji's bonito powder. Dried sardine powder also works, or you can substitute bonito flakes microwaved and crumbled into powder. The water is 200cc, and he says clean water is preferable. Ryuji thinks filtered water tastes better for cold soba, but since it's going to be chilled anyway, tap water is fine too, he says. At this stage the broth is "almost done," and since it has turned lukewarm, it goes into the refrigerator to chill.

Slice the chicken fairly thin. Thinner slices are easier to eat with the soba, and Ryuji says he chose thigh meat because it stays tender even when cold. He also showed off how nice the cut surface looks, emphasizing that this can be done quickly in the microwave.

Right after slicing, the meat is still hot, so it needs chilling too. The trick is to spread it out on a tray; when A-ko asks whether a silver one is better, Ryuji replies that iron and stainless steel conduct heat well, so they cool quickly. The refrigerator is the default, but the freezer is fine if you're in a hurry. This time he put it in the freezer, since a metal tray chills right away.

Ryuji says onigiri are a must with cold soba. He even said that if you serve onigiri, you can get by with less soba. A-ko replied that she had never paired cold soba with onigiri.

After discussing how to season the rice, they settled on "Devil's Onigiri" made with shio kombu (salted kelp). To make two 100g onigiri, they use 200g of rice. Add about 6g of shio kombu, pinched with three fingers, two handfuls of tenkasu (tempura bits), and green onion. Ryuji says the combination of tenkasu and shio kombu is guaranteed to taste good. But shio kombu and tenkasu alone aren't flavorful enough, so he adds 2 teaspoons of the dashi-based seasoning "Kore! Uma!! Tsuyu." Mentsuyu works if you don't have it.

Here Ryuji points out that relying on mentsuyu tends to make the rice watery. Ground sesame prevents that: adding two pinches lets the sesame absorb the moisture, firming the rice up a little and making it tastier, he says.

Ryuji says he's bad at shaping onigiri by hand, so this time he used an onigiri mold he had bought earlier. It looked like a 100-yen shop item, and there were no instructions to be found. Neither of them was quite sure how to use it, so they had to figure it out as they went.

The mold had a protrusion-like part, and neither of them knew what it was for. A-ko guessed it might be an "umeboshi pocket" for holding crunchy pickled plums, and asked knowledgeable viewers to tell them in the comments. Ryuji was skeptical: "It's there just for that?" Eventually Ryuji figured out that you press the mold down from above to shape the rice, and they ended up with neatly shaped onigiri.

The onigiri were covered in plastic wrap while the soba boiled. Otherwise they dry out, and Ryuji says details like this are part of the trick to enjoying food at its best. In practice they did dry out a little, but he said that being able to show the cooking as it happens in real time is the strength of the "no-rush" format.

The soba this time is Shinshu soba "Futogiri" (thick-cut), sold at his local supermarket. As the name suggests, the noodles are thick. Ryuji says he had it before and found it very good, and that since it's made in Nagano it should be reliable. No salt is needed in the water for boiling soba. He had boiled this product plain before and it was good, so he boils it plain again.

While waiting for the water to boil, Ryuji got the dishes done. This dish uses a lot of equipment, such as bowls, so washing up in between is important, he says. It doesn't feel good to finish eating, satisfied that "that was delicious," only to have dishes left over, and Ryuji told viewers that "washing up is part of cooking."

Boiling time is 6 minutes. When A-ko was surprised at how long it was, Ryuji replied that it's probably because the noodles are thick.

While the soba boils, slice the green onion garnish into thin rounds. He started to say regular green onion would do, but Ryuji said that konegi (thin scallions) don't give off much aroma, so chopping ordinary naganegi (long green onion) is definitely tastier. A-ko agreed that naganegi has a stronger onion flavor. They had to use the freshly washed cutting board again, which made them both laugh.

On how to chill the soba, the conversation turned to how this differs from advice he had heard before. Ikemori-san (spelling as given in the subtitles), with whom he collaborated about a year ago, said soba is better chilled with tap water rather than ice water. The reason was that ice water makes the soba too hard.

Even so, Ryuji used ice water this time. He gave two reasons. One is personal preference: Ryuji jokingly called himself a "dopa-gaki," short for "dopamine-addicted brat," saying he can't be satisfied unless the noodles are ice-cold. The other is the noodles' ingredients. Wheat flour is listed first in the ingredients on this soba's package, so Ryuji read it as a "wheat-flour soba" with 50% or more wheat flour. His view is that soba with a lot of wheat flour tastes better firmed up in ice water. He added that for soba with a high proportion of buckwheat flour, such as juwari (100% buckwheat) soba, ice water makes it hard, so he thinks it's better not to use ice. He repeated that affordable soba like this is definitely tastier firmed up in ice water.

The package said 6 minutes, but because Ryuji likes his noodles on the firm side and to keep filming manageable, he took them out about 40 seconds early. He says he prefers going a little shorter than the package time. As for the steps: first drain them in a colander and rinse off the sliminess under plenty of running water, then chill them thoroughly in ice water. Finally, squeeze out the water well. When asked why, A-ko answered, "Because it dilutes the flavor," and Ryuji confirmed that was correct.

The chilled broth has sediment at the bottom, so stir it lightly before using. Add the soba, top with plenty of chopped naganegi, and arrange the chicken chilled in the freezer on top. The chicken was quite cold. A sprinkle of shichimi adds nice color. If you like, put some wasabi on the rim of the bowl so you can change the flavor partway through. This time Ryuji wanted more saltiness, so he sprinkled a pinch of salt into the broth. This isn't essential; add it to taste, he says.

When A-ko asked whether he'd want to eat this for New Year's Eve, Ryuji replied that most people would probably want hot soba for New Year's Eve.

As they started eating, the first thing both of them mentioned was how good the broth was. A-ko said the meat was well seasoned too, adding, "I've never had soba like this." Ryuji noted that freshly cut green onion really does taste good, and that the chicken stays tender even when cold.

As for the soba, both rated it so good that it was hard to believe the noodles were cheap. Ryuji said their recommendation is this thick-cut Shinshu soba, adding that you can't go wrong with Shinshu soba. The wasabi flavor change also went well, they said.

Breaking the onigiri apart and eating them with their hands, they both agreed they were delicious. A-ko said the combination of soba and onigiri might be the best of all, and that she now understood what Ryuji meant when he said onigiri go with cold soba. Ryuji recommends that anyone who finds soba alone a bit unfilling should make onigiri too. They also confirmed that, thanks to the ground sesame, the rice wasn't mushy. With a mold, you can make them easily without shaping them by hand, so they said it's just right for a light lunch.

A-ko said she has lately found oily food harder to eat, and rated this dish as just right. According to Ryuji, this soba uses no oil at all. The two finished eating in no time, and A-ko said it was very satisfying. Ryuji said he wished there were restaurants in Tokyo serving dishes like this, and looking back, said this summer had produced a lot of good recipes, with every dish made in the no-rush videos among the very tastiest.

At the end, Ryuji summed up that this dish uses little oil and, being soba, causes a gentler rise in blood sugar, making it suitable for everyday meals. As for the onigiri, he thinks they go very well with it, but frames them strictly as an extra for people who can eat a lot. He then closed the video by urging viewers to give Yamagata cold meat soba a try.