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Gnocchis with Nettles in a Parmesan Broth

Posted on March 22, 2013 at 12:35 AM Comments comments (0)

Soba internship at Hosokawa

Posted on December 13, 2012 at 4:00 PM Comments comments (0)
Soba Master Hosokawa boiling soba noodles.

Doing an internship in a Michilen star restaurant is not easy.  Most chef look for someone young and eager. Not someone over fifty like me.   Hosokawa is a chef who is notorious for being a perfectionist, tough and uncompromising,  He has gone through a lot of apprentices but many don't last, and none of his three sons have followed his path.  But if put his disciplinarian style persona aside, Hosokawa serves the most elegant soba, edo-style.  100% milled and hand made on the premises of his small shop.  The buckwheat,  the vegetable, the eel andr oysters -are all personally selected carefully - he deals directly with farmers and fishermen and does not like going through middlemen.  His dipping sauces and soups are heavenly. His tempura is the considered better than tempura shops - crispy and light and always seasonal. i have been visiting Hosokawa's shop for years, every time I am in Japan I make a pilgrimage to his shop and go home enlightened.  But the only contact I had ever with him is his occasional audible yelling at one of the apprentices or calling out an order.  

But one day in July, a muggy hot day, I went to his shop in the early evening by myself to have a slurp of his soba and basically try as many dishes as I can manage.  When I got to the second dish of an eggplant served with miso, I couldn't help but ask if the eggplant was deep fried or barised. It was so sweet and tender, yet not greasy at all. The way the scallions and bell peppers adorned the dish was so lovely that I wanted to make conatct with the chef.  He suddenly appeared before me and came out of the kitchen personally to answer my question.  I was completely humbled. 

Hosokawa was much slimmer than the man I had seen in pictures, but there was the smile and the edokko style towel wrapped around his head. I learned later that he had been ill with intenstinal cancer and had been absent for sometime. He was slowly making a comeback when I went to the shop but in a short time, his assistant had ran away and was short of help. He seemed tired and needed to bounce his feelings to someone so willing  to listen like me.  I told him I live in Los Angeles and I love soba and I make soba.  He was interested in me and for the next 15 minutes, ( I was the last customer of the day), we had a conversation about soba - something that revealed who he was -  the artistry that he brought to each dish he created.  I knew that perhaps this is the moment to to ask if he would le me come to his kitchen and watch him make soba.  He said, sure. I had called him a number of times before to see if he would teach me soba but he was too busy back then that he had cancelled the workshop. I was delighted by the idea to watch him make soba - he asked me to call him
when I came back to Japan again, which I told him I would in December.

I called him the week before leaving for Japan. He answered the phone and remembered who I was. He invited me to come at 8am to his shop in Ryogoku. It would be an hour train ride from my parents' house in Shibuya.  I marked the date on my calendar. It was set for December 13, 2012.

I knew this experience was going to allow me to go back to the beginning and learn soba all over again.

Soba-to-go - A Summer Gig

Posted on August 13, 2012 at 1:05 AM Comments comments (2)
Summer Soba Salad 

The Summer of 2012 has been emotional and joyous   -  my son Sakae and BInah got married and my stepson Tyler and Emmalina had a baby.  It has also been physical and floury  - doing the noodle gig and getting slowly back into yoga.  My hands and clothes were crusted with flour all summer long.


The  fresh hand cut soba noodles are made for Cookbook in Echo Park and Ai restaurant in South Pasadena since May. I make the noodles on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for delivery before 11am.  It is  like doing yoga in the morning.  I sometimes arrive late to my yoga class on my noodle making mornings and apologiz to Art, my yoga teacher. But he totally gets what I am doing.   "You don't even have to come to yoga, just make your noodles. That's yoga."   

I have had my good days and bad days with soba.  A hot dry day in Pasadena can ruin your soba noodles.  It happened a couple of times. I couldn't get the water ratio right (the dough came out too soft or too dry)and had to dump my dough in the compost bin and start all over again. This is not fun when you know you have 50 servings to make before 10 am.  Making noodles with a pasta machine would be the no brainer route but the whole practice is done by hand so there are no short cuts in soba.  Working with buckwheat is a humbling experience. Besides being delicious, that's one of the reasons what I love about soba. 


The noodles-to-go are uncooked.  There are two servings in a box. So there is some work involved for the cook.  It comes with dipping sauce and condiments. My idea was to let people try making fresh handcut soba noodles at home. Making the noodles have been a lot of work but the response has been very good.  My noodles at Cookbook almost always sell out.

To cook the noodles, simply boil them in a pot of lots of water as you would do pasta.  Drop the noodles gently in the boiling water and cook for 70-90 seconds. Scoop the noodles out of the boiling water with a strainer and then quickly rinse and massage them under cold water to remove the scum.  Shock them in ice cold water with lots of ice cubes (I use a bowlful) . Allow the noodles to soak in the ice water for about 5 seconds to firm them up. Finally,  drain the water thoroughly.  Water left on the noodles can affect the taste of the noodles so this step is important.  Serve the noodles immediately. Don't let them sit around. They start to get mushy and dry.


The soba noodles can be also be served like a salad.  Pile some chopped summer greens and veggies on top of the noodles.  Add the sauce with a drizzle of olive or truffle oil.  So yummy.   My summer gig at Cookbook will end in August.  I will continue making noodles for Ai.

Somen Noodles - A Visit to Handa Somen Factory

Posted on July 7, 2012 at 7:10 AM Comments comments (0)

"When I slurp a bowl of somen noodles it becomes a summer breeze"


All Japanese noodles can be eaten hot or cold, but it is somen that stars during the hot summer months because Japanese consume them in enormous quantities to stay cool. Why are somen so extraordinarily cooling? Like angel hair pasta, somen is a very thin wheat noodles. They are served in ice water with ice cubes added to give the noodles that extra chilling factor. This is what makes the experience of slurping somen so smooth and satisfying in the summertime.


Noodle experts say good water and good flour make tasty somen noodles. Tokushima in Shikoku Island is known for their good water.  Nowadays, 99% of wheat is imported from Australia, Canada and the US and milled in Japan or to Japanese specifications.   Shikoku is  particularly famous for their udon and somen noodle culture.  I visited the Moriwaki family who owns a somen factory in Handa, which is located in the mountaineous side of Tokushima, about 1.5 hours away from the Tokushima airport. It was my first visit to Shikoku Island.  I flew in from Tokyo in the morning with my friend Mamiko Nishiyama. We  spent a good day at the factory watching how the Moriwakis make their noodles.  Their method, which is called "Tenobe" or hand pulled method is a labor of love.



The 78 year old Ms.Moriwaki takes two long wooden sticks to separate and pull the noodles.  The pulling is a gradual process that begins with a ball of dough which is pulled and separated into strands of noodles. The noodles are moved to several racks in different sizes where they get further stretched by hand.  It's quite laborious process. These elastic noodles appear delicate but they are like thick rubber bands.  I tried pulling the noodles myself and was surprised how difficult it was to pull the noodles while keeping the moist strands separate. The noodles are moved to different racks and pulled until they looked long enough to make a curtain.  Then they are left to dry. When the noodles are completely dry, they are cut and packaged. Watching the Moriwaki was like going to see a dance performance.  


The workroom where they pull the noodles is light and spotless. Fans keep the place cool. The lady is separating the noodles by hand. There are only four familes that make these noodles by hand. The flavor and texture of Handa Somen is outstanding. I brought back a half a suitcase full of Handa somen to do a workshop. It was a beautiful visit.


   

For Workshop details:

http://www.tortoisegeneralstore.com/event/2012/07/somen-workshop-by-sonoko-sakai-1.html

A Good Day for Making Soba

Posted on July 1, 2012 at 9:30 AM Comments comments (0)


I like making soba in the morning when the humidity is higher than average.  Lately, we've been having very dry days in Los Angeles  For the first time since I began using a humidity gauge, it showed an icon of a sad face when the humidity dropped to below 30%. This apparently indicates  :("extreme dryness."    But today was a very good day for soba.  At 57%, the humidity level was just right.  I used 48% water ratio.  My practice was better than usual.  It was a good way to start because I had to theach more than a dozen students at JANM.  I knew I would have one round of fresh noodles for them that will probably taste pretty good. Practice makes perfect they say but I would add humidity to that when it comes to soba.

Cookbook Window Dressing

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 5:05 PM Comments comments (0)


Cookbook at Echo Park decorated their shop window with cookbooks. I love that they featured a make soba and fresh sob cookbook!  This summer, I am offering fresh take out soba and soba workshop at the shop.  It's a lot o work to get up early to make 40 servings of soba but I love delivering the noodles to Cookbook.  Owners, Marta and Rob inspire me with their good taste and good food.

Common Grains - Soba Salad

Posted on March 17, 2012 at 3:55 PM Comments comments (1)


I don't know who invented the soba salad but it's not the Japanese. Go to Wholefoods, Tavern, Real Food Daily,  M Cafe in LA - Soba salad is on their regular menu.   I can't get used to the idea of pre-seasoned soba noodles though.The Japanees tradition is to eat fresh soba plain and quickly with a dipping sauce before they go limp or eat soba in a hot soup.  The first time someone served me a soba salad, I was horrified.  But I have become more open to fusion. If pasta works, why not soba?  

During the Common Grains event, we decided to put soba salad on the menu, and people went for it.  But we did something slightly different with the dressing to maintain the quality of our fresh, handcut soba.

Fresh hand cut tartary soba noodles.
Flour: Anson Mills Tartary Soba blended with Kitawase Soba
Water ration: 48%
We went light on the salad dressing and used two instead on one dressing.  The oil based dressing was used with the leafy vegetables and the oil-less Dowari- sauce for the noodles.  This way, you can taste the noodles before they get masked with the salad dressing.


It's simple to make this salad.  Pour the Dowari dipping sauce over the cold noodles.  In a separate bowl,  toss the leafy greans with the oil based dressing, and serve the salad right on top of the noodles.  This presentation allows you to taste the texture and flavor of the soba before it gets tosed up with the seasoned leafy greens.  I sprinkled some deep fried buckwheat grouts on top on this salad.

Soba salad with leafy greens, avocado, kiwi, red radishes, cilantro
                                               and buckwheat groats.  

Here is a simple sesame dressing that I used for the leafy greens.
Creamy sesame dressing for Soba Salad 
(Makes 2 cups) 
1 cup grape seed oil or canola oil
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup Mori tsuyu dipping sauce or more to taste or use 1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbls sesame oil 1 garlic clove, chopped finely
3-4 Tbls Atari Goma (Japanese sesame paste)
1 tsp grated ginger juice
1Tsp sugar to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
Put all the ingredients in a blender. Blend until creamy.

Dowari dressing
Dilute Hongaeshi with 25% Dashi. Bring to a boil in a pot and
simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and
let cool.  Keeps in the fridge for a week.

KCRW Good Food

Posted on February 26, 2012 at 7:45 AM Comments comments (0)
Teaching soba at Tortoise, Venice.

I got to go on KCRW Good Food to talk with Evan Kleiman about making soba at home.
It was fun to talk about something I love doing so much with one of my favorite talk show hosts.
 It was a good thing for the Common Grains project, particularly soba.

Mitsuwa Marketplace - Soba Demonstration and Sales

Posted on January 26, 2012 at 9:30 PM Comments comments (1)


Today, we started Phase 3 of the project at Mitsuwa Marketplace.  We are doing soba demonstrations and sales of fresh soba there. An elderly gentleman came to watch us make soba. He wore a Dodgers baseball cap and a clean white shirt. His back was quite bent but he walked without a cane. He watched us making soba, had a tasting of soba, then another, and after that, he wanted to buy the take home soba.  But later, he came back to tell me that he didn't know the soba noodles were uncooked!  Yes, I explained to him that the noodles needed to be cooked at home. He said he lived alone and didn't think he could cook the noodles by himself. He seemed a little lost because he had already paid for the noodles.  I felt  bad for him so we made an exception and cooked the noodles for him. He was very happy.  It turns out that he is a 105 years old retired math teacher. He is a regular at Mitsuwa. His son (who is in his early 80s) brings him to a bus stop where he picks up the bus that brings him to the market every week.  He likes to hang out at the food court.  

He watched the soba demonstration with curiousity. He enjoyed talking about his family.  His wife passed away a couple of years ago at age 94. He said that his wife getting sick forced him to walk again because he had to go visit her at the hospital.  He thanks his "kachan" in heaven everyday for enabling him to walk again. Now he visits her at the cemetary every week.  He says walking and appreciating people are the way to longevity.  He has 55 grandchildren and some.  When the noodles were cooked, I packed it carefully in his back pack. He headed for the exit. I hope to see him again while we are at Mitsuwa.

Soba event at Breadbar Century City

Posted on January 16, 2012 at 9:30 AM Comments comments (0)

She slurped it all!  

One of the main reasons why I got involved in the Common Grains project was to share my love for food and make new friends. The Common Grains soba event at Breadbar is doing just that. Every evening I am meeting new people and they all seem pretty happy with the soba.   We have another week to go at Breadbar and then we move to the next event. 

Some found out about us on the web.

This couple stopped by for soba on their way to the movies.
It was their first soba experience and love it!

She is eating the grilled onigiri.

Very happy slurpers.

Kanpai with sake!

This baby is getting a headstart with soba

The Bruin slurpers.  Anne's part of the Common Grains
creative team.
Karumude and her friend.

Buckwheat Farm visit - Mesa, Washington

Posted on September 24, 2011 at 5:45 PM Comments comments (1)

In the buckwheat fields of Pasco, WA

Last October, I visited the buckwheat farms in Pasco, East Washington during harvest time, and got to ride on a combine for the first time in my life. Here is a link to the story I wrote about the visit on Zester Daily.   This year, I visited Pasco in time to see the buckwheat fields in full bloom.  In a couple of weeks, the buckwheat will be harvested.  I visited Pasco with Mutsuko Souma, a Seattle based chef and soba maker, her husband Ken. Ken offered to be the designated driver and took us wine tasting in Walla Walla, which was the extra attraction during this trip.

Our first stop in East Washington was to see Al Pine, who was my generous host in Pasco when I did a soba workshop there with Akila Inouye, soba master last year.  Al who is tall Afro-American who looks more like a jazz musician than a Canola farmer, retired policeman. Al is interested in growing buckwheat but for the moment, he grows mainly canola.  Together with a wildlife botanist/landscaper Bill Mast, he contacted me about growing buckwheat when he read about the story on my search for buckwheat in the US in the Tri-Cities newspaper.  When he heard we were coming this time, Al got all excited. He said he spent 3 days cleaning house that hadn't been clean in 5 years.  "5 years," he exclaimed.  "5 years!" we exclaimed.  "That's what bachelorhood does to you." he says.  Al's house was decorated with lots of interesting art that he collected in China many years ago - one that struck me in particular was the Great Wall of China, inlaid in parts with mother of pearl. There was also a grand piano in the dining room. "Do you play?" I asked him. "I am going to start taking lessons," he answered with a smille. He made coffee and offered us chocolate chip cookies out  and apples he got from an apple farmer.  "Take as many as you like," he said. The apples tasted very sweet.  Later, Al took us out to lunch at the local grill where I ate a grilled cheese sandwich, Souma a BLT and Ken a hamburger in a hogie.

The buckwheat fields were beautiful.  Darrel said he recently took a family picture in another buckwheat field that were knee high with flowers.  He said it was a magnificent sight.  Darrel never gets tired of talking about buckwheat.  No wonder they call him Darrel buckwheat.  He is the real thing.


Darrel also showed us a maturer buckwheat field. When 75% of the seeds are brown and mature, it is ready for harvest.  He even offered me a job to come and help with the harvest.  "I will pay you minimum wage," he said, smiling.  Maybe next year, I said. He better be serious because I am.

Soba workshop with Tortoise Family

Posted on September 9, 2011 at 7:20 AM Comments comments (1)


    
  Humidity is  67% Good day for making soba!

Keiko and Taku Tsukamoto, the owners of Tortoise in Venice, and their staff have been very supportive of my cooking workshops, which began nearly two years ago.  I used to do them out of my house in Santa Monica but now I do many at  Tortoise' new adjunct gallery/workshop.  It' a beautiful space. 

Gathered here are the Tortoise staff and their families, some who were visiting from Japan.  We decided to make soba on Labor Day.  The store was closed so we had the use of the whole space. 

Soba is meditative.   It's also physical. I call it soba yoga.

Thomas is my workshop assistant.  He looks great with the tenugui wrapped around his head.  He loves food. He brought homemade pickles.  They were very good.

It's hard to believe that nobody had made soba before. Look at Tomoko's knife skills. People make udon noodles by hand but there is a myth that soba is difficult.  They learned that it's not the case.

The ingredients for making soba are just flour and water. Nothing more. You have to pay attention to the humidity factor, and how much water to add. Too much or too little is not good.  

The other trick is to make it quickly and combine the water and flour evenly.  If you take your time, the dough will dry out, and the noodles will fall apart.

Everyone's soba came out  nicely, in all shapes and sizes. Maybe a little on the thicker side, which means, they will take aboutr 4-5 minutes to cook.  We tasted them all.  

Shuko, Sachi and Sumi washing the bowls. This can be an image of a modern day woodblock print.

The head scarfs - tenugui are quite colorfu and attractive.

Tomoko's husband is trying the professional soba knife. No sweat.

Sachi wears her mother's embroidered apron. Her mother wants her to wear more girly clothes but she prefers the funky chick look. 



Someone's soba. Looks pretty good.

We did a pot luck. I made kinpira gobo.  Shuko made eggplant with white paste. Sachi made a plate of crudite with miso dip. Sumi's mother made sushi. I also made hot duck soba.  It was all very good. The best part was that we got to know each other better.   

Edible rosette windows.

And homemade Soba!  It can't get better than this.

Summer Vegetables with Soba

Posted on September 6, 2011 at 3:10 PM Comments comments (0)


Soba like pasta, pairs well with a variety of vegetables.  I had leftover fresh soba from yesterday's workshop, as well as sliced avocado, cucumbers, myoga, and  grated daikon radish and ground walnuts,  I cooked the soba and piled these veggies on top, and made a nice looking summer salad. I got inspired by Yoram Ottolengi's vegetarian cookbook  Plenty, which is very colorful, straightforward,l and yes, plentifuI. I made a quick dressing of 1 tbls extra virgen olive oil,  6 tablespoon all purpose dipping sauce and a squeeze of lemon juice. I can see Ottolengi adding a teaspoon or two each of sugar, garlic, sesame oil, chiles, ginger juice, and making something much spicier than mine.  He actually has two soba recipes, which includes such ingredients to make the dressing. That could work too. With fresh soba, you cannot let the noodles sit in the dressing. They will go limp and fall apart. Cook the noodles last minute, and shock them in ice.  I was happy I used up the soba noodles before they went dry and crumbly.

Seasonal Menu- Kinpira and Udon Noodles

Posted on September 1, 2011 at 4:35 PM Comments comments (0)


Kinpira burdock and carrots

SUMMER LUNCH MENU - WITH NOODLES

Kinpira Gobo - Stir fried burdock root and carrots
Hiyayako with mixed herbs 
Hot Udon Noodles with Toasted Age and Negi
Nectarine

Now that we have two home bases, one in Pasadena and Tehachapi, there are also two kitchens. Tehachapi's kitchen has been put together with odd and ends hat were sitting around the house. It's a funky collection but it is nice to inject new life into things you thought you no longer had much use for.

When we come to the ranch, I clear out the perishables from our fridge and bring it with us.  The  ice chest has become a good travel companion.  Even, a few tired looking carrots and half of a burdock made it into the ice box along with chives, dill, cilantro.  I also packed the tofu and udon noodles I made back in June that were sitting in the freezer. 

Hiyyako with mixed herbs

What we had for lunch today was Hiyayako again, but with mixed herbs. It's perfect starter for a hot day in the high dessert.  Dill is unheard of on a Hiyayako but it wasn't bad. I also used cilantro. I forgot to bring ginger, which traditionally goes on top of Hiyayako but I didn't miss it. 

There was enough carrots and burdock to make a small dish of kinpira gobo - stir fried roots.  They carrots were a little limp but I sliced the roots up and soaked them in water to crisp them up before frying.  I seasoned the roots with soy sauce and mirin. 
I toasted the age in the toaster. It came out nice and crispy.

Hand cut noodles - defrosted and boiled for 12 minutes, 
and then rinsed. 

Hot udon noodles in a soy broth with Toasted age and Negi

I toasted the age in the toaster, just enough to get them crispy.   It worked really well as a noodle topping.  I sliced some negi (scallions work too).  
I defrosted the udon noodles, and cooked them for 15 minutes. With udon, you want to gave them a good rinse to remove the surface slime.  I could have cooked the noodles in their frozen state but by the time we got to Tehachapi, they were starting to defrost, so I let it them defrost completely. Frozen or defrosted, these thick noodles take 12 -15minutes to cook.  I heated the soy broth that I made in Pasadena.  You could put a half boiled egg as a topping, if you want more protein but we had eggs for breakfast so I kept it vegetarian. The hand made noodles still tasted very good and had good texture.  I was pleased about that.

Making Soba with Children

Posted on August 5, 2011 at 12:00 AM Comments comments (0)

One thing I enjoy about children is that they have almost no inhibitions about learning something new.  In this situation, making soba.  I had my two nephews and niece stay with me for a few days.  Initially, I was worried that I may not make a good hostess, and these kids would get bored to death. It's not like I have legos and dolls around the house, and my tv doesn't even work.  But children don't necessarily need toys to have fun. They are naturally creative and I soon recalled what it was like to be a young mother again.  I didn't need to keep them busy.  They kept me busy.  For a few days, at least.  

Soba made by Hayato, Mako and Miki

Hayato, the oldest one of the bunch is visiting from Tokyo.  All three love their mother's home cooking and when the visit me,they eat everything I make, so they must like it, too.  They unanimously wanted to eat soba noodles for lunch. Since they know I make my own, they wanted to learn how to make soba - not the dried noodle kind but fresh from scratch.  No sweat.

The three children are ages 8, 10 and 11 so they listen to you for the most part, and follow instructions.  Hayato has already made udon noodles  (here is the link to the blog), and his mother is a pastry chef, so he has some experience dealing with flour and water.  For the other two kids, it was their first noodle making lesson.


WIth kids, it's good to start with smaller portions than adult portions.  I used the regular recipe for beginners soba, and it worked out fine.

Hayato is a natural with flour.  He did a good job of combining the water and flour quickly, scraping the bottom to clean the bowl as he went. 
Miki's first soba!

Miki and Mako participated when the dough was ready to knead.  Even just rolling out the dough is fun for kids. The idea is to flatten the dough evenly and thinly, and as wide as possible. Square is the shape but I told them, it can be round too.  Just be careful not to tear the dough because with soba, it doesn't mend well.

Future Michelin Star Chef!

After flattening the dough to about 1/8 inch, the noodles are cut.  I cut Miki's because the knife, as you can see the soba knife is big and scary looking, even for an adult.  Hayato wanted to cut his own noodles. I trusted Hayato with the knife because he is used to handling a kitchen knife.  Of course, I stood next to him and gave him guidance, and watched him closely.  He did fine.

Mako pays attention.  He is very careful with the knife.

Nice looking noodles.

The best part was eating them. They were absolutely delicious. We had fun. Two days later, we made noodles again!   

Soba Workshop at Tortoise-Venice, CA

Posted on July 13, 2011 at 11:20 AM Comments comments (0)


This is the second summer since I started soba workshops.  I never thought I would be in so deep with soba.  My second refrigerator is full with flour.  I actually get anxious when my soba flour stock begins to run low.  

 

         

Student making soba

I used to do the workshops at home but now I am also going out to places likeTortoise in Venice and the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.  Doing these workshops take a lot of work but I love doing them. 


You want your workshop to run smoothly but sometimes you can run into unexpected surprises. Last week, when I did a udon workshop at the museum, a wedding was double booked by mistake and the kitchen was not available. There was a whole crew of chefs and waiters bringing in the food when I got there with my soba making tools.  But it all worked

   

Soba made by a student

out.  The chef was nice enough to give me one burner on the range to cook the noodles.  I had to conduct most of the workshop in another room, using an electric heating unit to make the stock but we managed.   It was a little bit like camping and the noodles turned out delicious.

Roger is cutting the dough

Torotise is an elegant store on Abbot Kinney in Venice.  I didn't experience any glitches here.  Tortoise added this additional room last spring.  It's a gallery of beautiful objects but they also conduct fun workshops like Japanese coffee making, flower arrangement, woodworking, and soba making by hand.  I am the messy one of the group but I bring my assistant to make sure we don't leave any flour around.  

I love being at Tortoise.  It's hard to walk out without not buying something.  Everything they have is made in Japan.  It makes good sense for me to doing a soba workshop here. I will be doing another one soon.

Kneading the dough

Feasting on the soba 

Soba for beginners recipe can be found here.

Soba by Hand - A good day for soba

Posted on July 11, 2011 at 7:13 PM Comments comments (0)

Anon Mills: 100% Sobako Flour
50% boiling water
Humidity: 60%


I am alone in Pasadena today but there is a lot of activity around the house. There are men working on the sprinkler system in the backyard.   I am happy that the landlord is finally getting around to fixing it because the poor trees were not getting any water. I was going out there with a hose and watering the trees but it wasn't enough to quench their thirst. 

Most of my days in Pasadena begin with some activity with soba. I tried to make it a daily practice.  This morning, I tested Anson's buckwheat flour - Sobako. It's got a deep earthy color and makes me want to label it  "Inaka" country style soba.  It's very fragrant. I have used this sobako several times but I am still trying to get to know this flour. 

I used boiling water instead of regular water to mix into the flour. This hot water method helps gel the glutens in the wheat with the starches in the buckwheat flour.  


I let this soba rest for an hour.  They tasted delcious with a dipping sauce.  . 

Udon by Hand

Posted on July 5, 2011 at 2:09 AM Comments comments (5)



Nothing beats making noodles by hand.  It's meditative. It's fun. It's being physical. But when you spend the whole week making udon noodles like I did, you get more than a few bowls of good noodles.  You get some insight into how dough behaves under a variety of conditions.  Humidity and temperature can affect the nature of the dough.  And like humans, I find udon noodles love a good rest. One hour is the minimum but they can rest for up to 3 days in the fridge. A dough that has rested for a decent amount of time is more kneadable.  


One of the important steps of making udon by hand is stepping.  So making udon by hand can actually be called making udon by feet but somehow that doesn't sound so appetizing. As you can see in my picture, however, there is no direct contact of the feet with the dough. I wear a pair of clean socks and the dough is inside a plastic bag (garbage bag). You do have to be careful not to tear the bag while stepping. If you see any splits in the bag, move the dough around and use another section of the bag. The weight of the body helps elasticize the dough.   You can probably do this process by machine but the sole purpose of making noodles this way is to enjoy the physical activity.


Use your heels and toes to step.  Move around in circles.  Do a little dance and the dough will be happy.


After you have stepped on the dough, fold it into three, and step on it two more times. (See the recipe section for detailed instructions). 

Turn the final disc into an envelope. Try to seal the end by pressing the flap of the dough with your fingers.

Turn it over and shape the dough into a ball.  Let it rest for 1 hour or overnight.  The dough stablizes, gains elasticity and shine.

I rested my dough everywhere from 3 hours to 2 full days.  It was much easier to work with dough that rested a longer period of time. I rolled it out to 3 mm thick.  That's the ideal thickness for sanuki style udon.
   

Plenty of cornstarch is sprinkled on the dough before cutting to keep the noodles from sticking.  My noodles came out uneven but they tasted quite good.  Great texture.  The dipping sauce made with sardines makes it especially flavorful. You can freeze udon and keep it in the fridge for 3 months. You don't need to defrost the udon. 
      

RECIPE

Handmade Udon

4 servings

Use a digital scale to measure the ingredients.

500 grams Udonko flour (Nishin's Canary)

Water  215 grams 

Salt  20 grams

 

½ lbs Cornstarch for dusting

 

Steps:

Mix the water and salt in a bowl, following separate instruction sheet.

Sift the measured flour.

 

Mixing:

Combine 2/3 of the measured salt water with the flour. Mix quickly until it becomes crumbly.

 

Add the remaining water until the dough sticks together. There can be clumps of dried areas, and it doesn’t have to be in the shape of a ball yet. You will have to adjust the water according to the freshness of the flour, temperature and humidity level.

 

Stepping:

Put the dough inside the folded plastic sheet and step on it for 4 or 5 minutes.

Fold the dough under and keep the smooth side facing up. You will repeat this process three times. The dough will become firm, smooth and shiny.

Let the dough rest in a plastic bag for 5 minutes.

The dough should be about 10 inch square or 25cm square.

Take the dough out of the plastic bag and make a round dough, folding the edges into the center, using your thumb to press the dough down. Turn it over, so the smooth side of the dough it facing up.  Let the dough rest for 1 hour and up to overnight in room temperature. If it is too hot and humid, leave it in the vegetable compartment of the fridge. It can stay in the fridge for 2 days.

 

Kneading and Cutting :

Knead the dough into a disc. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into noodles.

Sprinkle generaous amounts of constarch on the dough. Fold (as per picture) into three folds

and slice across.


With 500grams of Flour, the thickness should be 50cm square, 4mm thick.

The thickness can also range from 4mm, but it can be thinner or thicker.

 

 

 

 

Cooking the noodles:

 

Boil water in a large pot. Boil the noodles for 12 minutes to 14 minutes.  Rinse under

cold water, massaging the noodles to take off the surface film.  You will have smooth and shiny noodles.

  

To serve:

Put the udon noodles in a bowl.

Heat the broth and pour the hot broth over and serve with

Condiments.

 

Condiments:

Grated ginger

Chopped green onions

Roasted Sesame Seeds

Nori

 

 

Udon Broth Recipe

4 servings

 

2.2 L water

15 grams Konbu seaweed, surface cleaned

30 grams Iriko (dried sardines), guts and head removed

15 grams Bonito Flakes

120 ml Light color soy sauce (Usukuchi soysauce)

3 Tbls sake

Salt – optional (Arajio) 1gram

3 Tbls mirin, optional

 

Place the konbu and Irio in the measured water for 3 hours to overnight.


Bring the measured water and konbu and Iriko mixture to nearly a boil. Turn of heat and remove the konbu and Iriko. Add Bonito flakes. After 30 seconds, strain the liquid through in a paper towel lined strainer.

 

Add soy sauce, sake, salt and mirin and bring the broth to nearly a boil. Turn off heat. The broth is ready for use.

 

To freeze: Separate the dough into 150 gram serving. Wrap in plastic.  Put the wrapped noodles in a freezer bag. To serve, take the noodles out of the freezer and boil them in plenty of water for 14-15 mintues.  Follow cooking steps as you would fresh noodles.

My Soba Studio - Pasadena

Posted on June 28, 2011 at 11:39 AM Comments comments (0)



In the mornings, when I am making noodles in my studio, I hear the frequent singing of mocking birds and wild tropical parrots that reside in the trees of Pasadena.  Since moving here two months ago,  I  am using one of the two bedrooms in our house as a soba studio. The studio faces my neighbors' fence, so there isn't much of a view, but it keeps my eyes on the noodles, and my ears  tune into the music of nature.

Fresh soba noodles made by hand.

The studio like the rest of the house is quiet; it stays cool all day, which is good for my dough.  Pasadena can get dry and hot in the summer and hot weather can quickly dry out my soba, and makes binding the dough very difficult.  It is a bit of a challenge but I keep my eyes on the humidity gauge and try to make soba when the humidity is in the 60s. 

Making Udon by hand.

The work table is where everything begins for a noodle maker.  I suppose it's like a painter's canvas. My table measures 42 in x 40 in x 30.  Sakai made it to suit my 5'4 height.  The table is made of simple plywood like many of the furniture in our house. Sakai made the table with just function in mind. But something that functions well has it's own aesthetic beauty.  I have set the table against the wall, so I can use three sides.  I measure and mix the flour and water, I knead the dough, I cut the noodles. I can store my large bowls and pots underneath.  I can roll out my dough as big as this table, if I want.  I do everything on this table except cook the noodles.  My rolling pins are stored in a box near the window. My books, soba knives and other utencils are on the side table  For art, I have Sakae's collage and Sakai's two watercolors.  Everything is visitble and within reach. 


Soba made with 20 wheat/80 buckwheat flour.
    

Sobayu - Buckwheat broth

Posted on June 21, 2011 at 2:42 AM Comments comments (0)



The cooking broth that is used for boiling soba noodles makes a satisfying and heathy broth called Sobayu. It is usually served half way during the meal when you order cold soba at a soba noodle shop.  The standard way to drink it is to pour the broth directly into the cup containing the dipping sauce.  Usually, by the time they serve the broth, you would have used half the dipping sauce for the soba.  The sobayu dilutes the dipping broth and makes a nice, not too salty broth.  But I like to drink sobayu straight. It has a very clean taste and nice fragrance.

This sobayu has alight mustardy color because it is the cooking broth that came from boiling tartan soba noodles.
See my blog about tartan soba noodles.