How to make Soba Noodles

I'm following this thread with great interest! I'd love to see how you do it.

Happy slurping!

Thank you sooooooo much for the video. He made it look so simple. I found the technique really great and adaptable to the tools I already have in my kitchen as long as I make a smaller amount of dough. Now if I can only adapt it to 100% buckwheat flour noodles (in order to keep them gluten-free). This is one of the recipes I use. http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2009/05/homemade-buckwheat-soba-noodles-gluten-free.html

Looks like a very easy thing to make using my pasta machine.

dcarch

I will have to get some buckwheat flour before I can make them. For some reason, I was unaware that buckwheat was not wheat - I guess because it has "wheat" as part of its name.

I will also try making the dough by hand but then roll it out in my pasta machine. I also do not want to make a huge quantity at once, but I guess I could freeze leftover pasta, if I make too much.

It's what a traditional galette is made from. Delicious. It gives bread a wonderful flavour.

Buckwheat is a fruit seed, not a grain, and it is related to wild rhubarb and sorrel and contains no gluten. You can mill your own buckwheat flour in a coffee/spice mill because it's a very soft seed. And as always, the freshly-milled flour is best since it is very perishable once the seed coat has been destroyed and oxygen degrades the seed oil. One cup of buckwheat makes about 1-cup of flour.

For the most neutral flavor, use a light, silver-hulled Acadian buckwheat grown exclusively in northern New England and Canada. It also has a decent protein content at 13.3%, and 13.3% fiber.

Buckwheat flour is made from unroasted groats and is graded light, medium, or dark, depending on the amount of black hull the flour contains. The hull is rich in lysine, an important amino acid. You can also heighten the flavor of buckwheat flour by lightly toasting the buckwheat in a dry skillet or wok until it releases its aroma. Unroasted buckwheat is pale tan and green.

Buckwheat is also good for sprouting. I use sprouted and dehydrated buckwheat in all kinds of things, including making sprouted buckwheat flour.

FYI: If you make 100% buckwheat soba noodles, the dough is difficult to work with in a pasta machine, so I roll the dough out by hand and hand-cut noodles with my various noodle cutters.

I may have to try my hand at this. It is difficult to find gluten free buckwheat noodles, or I should say, for a price I am willing to pay although King Soba noodles are pretty good, and I really like their buckwheat ramen. I use buckwheat often, especially for crepes and for green onion pancakes. For those applications, I soak it a bit and then grind it up with the liquid in the blender. Good eating.

I didn't think I wanted to sit through a 28 minute video, but once I got started watching, I forgot about the time because I was so fascinated. It was very interesting. I love the big bowl he uses. Now I'm wanting Soba noodles.

Sally

I finally made the soba noodles today, and I pretty much followedthis recipe, which I found to be somewhat easier than the recipe in the video. I used two cups of buckwheat flour, 1/2 cup of A-P flour, and 3/4 cup of water to start. I first sifted the flours together in a fairly large bowl, made a well, and then poured in the water. I can understand now why it is important to mix the dough with hands instead of utensils, as it is very important to feel the dough, to know whether it needs more flour or water. I got a crumbly, somewhat dry mixture at first, and so I sprayed the dough with water, to add just a bit more moisture. Eventually, it started to come together, a bit like pie dough, and finally it was mixed together enough to form a ball when I pressed it together. It stayed as crumbs until I forced it to form a ball, as I did not want to add too much water.

Then I turned it out onto a large board (18"x22") kneaded it for quite a while, to get the dough to a smooth consistency. This took quite a bit of effort - the dough had the consistency of #2 Plastilina modelling clay and was very resistant to kneading, the same as modelling clay. At this point, I decided that it might not be a good idea to try to use the pasta roller, as I was afraid the dough would be too brittle, and so I decided to roll it and cut it by hand. Here's the dough all rolled out:

It pretty much filled the 18" x 22" board. I used tapioca flour on the board to keep it from sticking, and that worked very well. Then I floured half of the top to fold it over into an 18" x 11" rectangle, and then again into an 18" x 5-1/2" rectangle, which I then began cutting:

At first I just used one bamboo cutting board as a guide, but as I got further down, the board became unstable, and so I had to put another board under it to keep it from tilting and sliding.

It was very difficult to cut the dough into 1/8" strips, and so it came out more like fettuccine instead of linguini. I used two different knives - my vegetable cleaver (show above) and my Japanese chef's knife:

I cut my right little finger when I was picking up cut noodles, and my finger got too close to the bottom corner of the knife.

I boiled the noodles for two and a half minutes in a large pot with a strainer inside, so that I could remove them easily and rinse them. In all, I boiled three batches of noodles and stored them in a colander to drain.

I tasted one noodle by itself, as recommended by the video, but was unimpressed, and so I tried it with a dipping sauce. Instead of making my own dipping sauce, I decided to use some that I had bought at a Japanese market: Kikkoman Hon Tsuyu (soup and sauce base) because it has the same ingredients as the sauce in the video. It only required water to be added, and this brand should be readily available. Kevin wanted hot soup instead of cold noodles with a dipping sauce, and so I poured some of the noodle cooking water (as recommended) into another pan and added a packet of Yamaki Dashi No Moto (powdered soup stock), which is a sort of instant dashi. I have bonito flakes (which I use on Okonomiyaki), but I decided to use the instant dashi instead - it gave the broth the flavor that I wanted.

I julienned part of a carrot using my Japanese mandoline and put that on top. I had intended to also put chives on top, since I have tons of those in my yard, but I forgot.

I have about half of the noodles left over, and I dried them well and hope they will keep okay in the fridge until tomorrow.

The noodles are fairly easy to make, but they do crack if you are not careful. Part of my dough tore at one point, making some of the noodles shorter, but that was not an issue since I put them into soup. I would prefer to make thinner noodles and might try putting the dough through my pasta cutter next time, as an experiment.

One thing I can say is that the tapioca starch did a fantastic job of keeping the noodles from sticking, and so I highly recommend using that if you plan to make these noodles. Cornstarch may be a good substitute, however. I used a mushroom brush (white, in the photos) to remove excess starch from the dough and onto my counter.

Lars, I've been interested in your experiment as I relish buckwheat so I was glad to see your update. That's impressive and truly a labor of love.

I think I'll trek over to Gardena and purchase the freshly prepared ones:)

I assume you are referring to Marukai Market in Gardena. That is about 10 miles from me, but there is another one in West L.A. that is less than 7 miles from me, and that is the one we normally go to. Mitsuwa is only 5 miles from me, but it is quite a bit smaller, and the parking lot is almost always full or extremely crowded, and so we go to Marukai in WLA instead. Mitsuwa is on the way to Marukai, and so if we cannot park at Mitsuwa, we continue on to Marukai, which has a very spacious parking lot.

Glad I read this before I headed out the door! Saved me a longer trip and $1 (non membership fee) to shop! Thanks for the tip.

Update on noodles:
Last night I made some soup/broth to have with the leftover
noodles. I had saved some of the
previous broth, which had the noodle cooking water in it, and I added more
Kikkoman soup base to it, plus 2 cloves of Music Garlic (from Katie), some
minced pickled ginger, chives, sesame oil, 1/2 minced Habanero chili, some
cubed tofu, and three eggs, as egg drop, after the broth had simmered for a
while, to cook the garlic and chili. I
put serving portions of noodles into soup bowls and ladled the broth over the
noodles and added some more chives. The
noodles had softened somewhat, but still had good texture, probably because
they were so large, and Kevin liked them better than the day before, but I preferred
the chewier noodles. I can see that
thinner noodles would not have kept as well for a second day. Kevin liked the more flavorful broth better
– with the garlic and ginger, but I liked both. I did add some dried wakame to my soup, and Kevin left that out
of his.

I do like the buckwheat flour and think it is better
for my stomach and therefore will be making these again – in a smaller quantity
for my next experiment. I had bought
the buckwheat flour at Surfa’s Restaurant Supply, and so it was not from Bob’s
Red Mill, which I understand is not as good for making noodles. The flour I have is extremely fine in
texture, similar to cornstarch, and so it makes noodles that are not in any way
gritty.