Agebitashi

20250609 #breakfastdiary 1422, 22°C/mostly cloudy, 20 min/exercise (S) "La nuit porte conseil" — the night brings counsel — is a French proverb the late critic Hwang Hyun-san beautifully translated as "the night is a teacher." The idea is that no matter how hard the problem, sleeping on it brings a good solution. And it's true — a tangled, hopeless-seeming problem often becomes crystal clear once you clear your head and look at it again. But amazingly, a single night doesn't just solve problems — it can also make its own breakfast. Agebitashi (揚げ浸し) is fried vegetables marinated in a soy-based sauce. ("age" means fried, "bitashi" means soaked.) All sorts of vegetables fried in oil, then marinated overnight in a soy-based sauce — agebitashi, too, comes together on its own; a breakfast made by the night. Late at night before bed, I fried up some vegetables, let them marinate overnight, and served them with boiled somen noodles: #agebitashi somen

A bit of somen noodles, assorted vegetables, one piece for topping plus wasabi, (broth) 300ml water, 100ml mirin, 50ml soy sauce, 50ml tsuyu, 1t ginger

1. Bring 300ml water, 100ml mirin, 50ml soy sauce, 50ml tsuyu, and 1t ginger to a boil. 2. While it cools, heat plenty of oil in a pan and fry the vegetables — eggplant, zucchini, tomato, mushroom, kabocha squash, whatever you like. 3. Layer the fried vegetables in a bowl, pour over the broth from step 1, and refrigerate. (At least 30 minutes, but overnight is recommended.) 4. Boil the somen, adding cold water as it boils, then rinse in cold water. 5. Put the somen in a bowl, add the marinated vegetables from step 3. Mix the broth from step 1 with cold water in a 1:1 ratio and pour it over. (If you like it strong, you can skip diluting it with water — since this is breakfast, I diluted it to keep it light.) 6. Top with grated radish and wasabi.