Pasta and bean salad Asian style

If you grew up in the 1970s, as I did, chances are that you hate alfalfa sprouts, as I do.

Okay, I know this is a healthy-eating column and alfalfa sprouts are full of living enzymes, etc. But I will continue to scrape them off my salads and sandwiches, probably forever.

Bean sprouts are a different matter.

As the child of a Japanese mother, I grew up eating them the way other children grew up eating peanut butter.

They are delicious, they are full of the same living enzymes as other "sprouts" and they do not make you feel as though you’ve just forked Barbie doll hair into your mouth.

The sprouts that are traditionally served in Asian cuisine come from the unattractively named mung bean. They are not a common sight yet at area grocery stores, although they can usually be found at Guido’s in Great Barrington and at Stop & Shop in North Canaan.

Generally, they are sold in clear plastic bags and can be recognized by their pale yellow tips and straight white bodies, which are usually about an inch long.

Bean sprouts are crunchy and refreshing, with a light, watery taste. If your sprouts taste sour, chances are they’ve gone bad; remember that sprouts are plants in a state of transition and they spoil very quickly, often within a few days.

Because they are the embryo form of a bean, they are full of protein, but they have almost no fat (and definitely no animal fat) and are very low in carbohydrates. And because they are beans-but-not-beans, they are much easier to digest than their fully formed counterparts.

Bean sprouts also are a very good source of folate and vitamins B and C.

If you aren’t sure how to cook them, don’t worry. They taste great raw, added to the top of a salad or (if you like tofu) sprinkled on top of a square of quickly steamed firm tofu that has been dressed with some soy sauce, scalllions and freshly grated ginger.

I like to add sprouts to a bowl of instant Japanese ramen (if you can, try to find a brand that doesn’t have MSG; if you fail at that, cook your own Asian-style noodles and add them to chicken soup that has been cooked with some soy sauce, fresh ginger and scallions).

If you feel more ambitious, you can add them to the traditional Japanese hot-pot meals called sukiyaki and shabu-shabu.

But an easier way to use them comes from a recipe in the new cookbook "The Food You Crave," by nutritionist and registered dietitian Ellie Krieger.

This recipe calls for soba noodles or whole-wheat linguine but we substituted Japanese somen noodles, which are a thinner version of the delicious white-wheat udon noodles.

Soba noodles are a healthier but more toothsome noodle variation, made from buckwheat; next week we’ll feature buckwheat and somen, in another Krieger recipe.