Food: Cooking With... By Zofia Ciechowska. Image by Carlijn Potma
Xiu Xiu Every month we ask an artist to share a recipe for their favourite dish How to make Shayna’s Hiyashi Chuka
Xiu Xiu’s Shayna Dunkelman was raised in Tokyo on her Jewish American dad’s chopped liver and her Chinese Indonesian mother’s nasi goreng. Glancing forlornly at her classmates’ beautiful bento boxes, Shayna took matters into her own hands, bought some Japanese cookbooks and showed everyone how it’s done. ‘Hiyashi Chuka is something quick I like to make for lunch, it translates as “chilled Chinese”. It’s a super easy cold ramen noodle dish, and you can decorate it with whatever you have in your fridge. The sauce is the only thing that is pretty consistent. Restaurants around Tokyo always have signs advertising it for lunch in the spring. Whenever I make it I pick some fresh tomatoes off my sunny fire escape in New York and I add them in.’
• Mix water, vinegar and sugar in a bowl, heat it up in the microwave so the sugar dissolves. Next, add the soy sauce, lemon, sesame oil and a bit of black pepper and stir well. Set aside. • Get your sharpest knife and slice up your cucumber, tomato, crabsticks, chicken, omelette, avocado, seaweed and lettuce into fine strips. • Cook your noodles according to the instructions on the pack; fresh ones are best, but dry ones are also fine. Once drained, rinse in cold water. • Arrange the noodles in a serving bowl and neatly arrange your salad ingredients in a sunny ring on top. Add your sauce and decorate with pickled ginger. Xiu Xiu play on 18 May at WORM in Rotterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members.
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