先日の３０度を越す夏の日々が嘘のように、この数日は肌寒いです。朝方トイレに行くとき、ノースリーブでは寒すぎて冬用のパジャマに逆戻り。

The days of summer have changed into damp and cold days.  I was so cold wearing a no-sleeve top to go to the loo in the morning I’ve changed my pyjamas back to wintery ones.

サンドイッチにはパンが足りないし、冷凍ご飯もないし、ラーメンの気分じゃないし、ということで、そんな肌寒い日ですが、今日はランチに中華冷麺を作りました。中華冷麺って時々食べたくなります。麺はインスタントラーメンの麺を使いました。具は、きゅうり、トマト、錦糸卵。普通のハムがなかったので、使いかけだった生ハムを使いました。生姜、マスタード、紅生姜を真ん中にのせて、いりごまをパラパラ。タレはお砂糖とお醤油を温めてお砂糖を溶かしたところにお酢を加えたもの。

氷が少ししかないのでこういう時に贅沢に使えず冷たい麺ではなかったのですが、水道のお水もそう暖かくはないので美味しくいただけました。イギリスのキュウリはあまり香りがないのが残念、日本のキュウリならもっと美味しかったと思います。

We didn’t have enough bread for sandwiches, not enough rice in the freezer for stir-fry.  We could have had ramen noodles but I decided to make cold Chinese noodles in Japanese way, which is a very popular dish in summer in Japan.  Occasionally I crave for it and I guess I thought of it because the hot weather had reminded me of it even though it’s a miserable damp day today.  I used noodles from instant noodle pack and topped with cucumber, tomato, egg and Parma Ham (we usually use thinly sliced roast ham but we didn’t have it at home and we had a half eaten Parma Ham package).  A little grated ginger, mustard and Japanese pickled ginger in the middle and scattered some roasted sesame.  The sauce was a mixture of sugar, soy sauce and vinegar.  You mix everything in the bowl when you eat.

As we cannot use lots of ice like we used to we weren’t able to make the noodles very cold but the tap water isn’t warm today so it was good enough.  We enjoyed it very much.  English cucumber doesn’t have very much flavour, it would have been even nicer with Japanese cucumber.