Cooktellsastory

Category: Noodles, Pasta and Dumplings

Breadbar - Pop up soba bar and soba workshop

Posted on August 15, 2010 at 4:39 AM Comments comments (0)

I am in Japan to bring back some fresh buckwheat flour for our upcoming Pop up soba event and soba workshop at Breadbar, West Hollywood.  Here is the link to Breadbar. 

Sado, Japan

Green Tea Soba - Matcha Soba

Posted on July 20, 2010 at 7:21 PM Comments comments (2)


Humidityy 52%
Gozen Soba Flour  400 grams
Wheat flour: 100 grams
Seasoning: Matcha powder 3% of weight of the flour
Water: 52% (boiling water)

Most soba you can get at the market or restaurant is made with buckwheat flour mixed with some wheat flour. But when a seasoning like Matcha is added to soba, it becomes Kawari soba. Kawari means variationThe seasoninng can be a vegetable or a fruit.  On some festive occasions, seafood like shrimp is used to make a cheerful red soba.  The possibilities are many but Matcha is probably the most popular Kawari soba.

I've been wanting to make Kawari soba for a long time. But with what seasoning was the question. I thought of making it with Yuzu, but I missed the chance during wintertime. Then came spring and I saw someone make Kawari soba, using pickled cherry blossoms.  The hint of pink in the noodles, the salty taste and the perfume of the flowers made the noodles very attractive.  But before I got around to getting the pickled cherry blossoms, summer came. But that's okay.  I decided to make my Kawari soba with Matcha powder, which is readily available at Japanese markets or on-line.

Gozen flour, also called Sarashina flour, is used for making Kawari soba.  This soba flour is made with the core part of the milled buckwheat seed. The texture is smooth and fine but on its own, Gozen flour has very little flavor or nutrients. That's where the seasonings come in to brighten it up.  

Matcha soba was the treat I got whenever I visited my great aunt and uncle in Setagaya, a suburb in Tokyo. They always ordered in the soba for lunch, and with it came a big shrimp tempura.  Come to think of it, maybe it was the shrimp tempura that I was more interested in than the matcha soba but the combination of this dish plus me being there alone with my relatives made this occasion super special.   

A little can of Matcha powder cost me an alarming $18 at Nijiya market but I had to have it to make this soba and I used about half of the can. Dealing with matcha powder can be messy if you spill it on your cutting board or get it on your white shirt. But I like how jade green these noodles turned out.  I can say that despite my anticipation, however, I couldn't  taste the Matcha flavor in the noodles all that much.  Maybe the Matcha soba I ate when I was a gril tasted more intense because I was younger. I am also too familiar with matcha tea, having sat in many of my grandmother's tea ceremonies. I expected my matcha soba to be more fragrant.   Akila Inouye suggested serving the matcha powder on the side and let people sprinkle it over plain white gozen noodles.  He thinks this is a more effective way to taste matcha than putting it into the dough.  That is an option but then it would take away the fun of making these green noodles.  In all honesty, I got  spoiled by the nutty flavor of plain buckwheat noodles that if I had a choice between plain and Kawari soba, I would choose the plain.  It was an interesting excercise though. Sakai liked the color of the noodles, and ate a plateful. I would make kawarisoba again, maybe with shiso or yuzu next time.  

Gozen flour comes from the inner part of the milled seed.
It's the finest flour. It's basically like white rice. It is not particularly
rich in nutrients but it's has a pearly white color when cooked into
noodles, and the texture is smooth.

Kawari soba is mixed with hot water.  A fan is used to cool
off the hot water quickly, so as not to dry out the flour.

I use a traditional wooden shamoji paddle and artisanal fan.
I adore my Japanese kitchen tools. The 4x 6 are used to raise 
the kneading bowl to speed up the cooling process.

The fan in action.

The soba dough with matcha powder.  The green color looks delicious. 
It's a gigantic green kiss.  Hershey should come up with Matcha Kisses.
I bet people would love it.

The dough is on the softer side compared to regular soba dough.

I put uchiko (soba flour) to prevent the dough from sticking.

I fold the dough two more times.

The dough is ready to be cut.
I use the dull edge of the knife to scoop up the noodles.

The noodles are ready to be cooked.


I cooked the noodles for 1 minute.  A quick rinse in cold water
and then I shocked the noodles in ice water. 

Voila! Matcha noodles ready to be served with a dipping sauce
and condiments - grated daikon radish and sliced negi.

Soba Noodle Chips

Posted on July 15, 2010 at 12:03 AM Comments comments (2)






While making soba for lunch today,  I made some fried soba chips with fresh dough.  I love these chips. They can be salted or sprinkled with sugar.  I like them with salt.  

It later got scorching hot this afternoon.  I didn't feel like doing much cooking in the evening. And I didn't have to. I found a beautiful fresh Dungenous crab at the market, all cooked and ready to be cracked.  It was a perfect evening to sit outside in the patio to have dinner.  I laid out some newspapers and we had the crab with the freshly made soba chips, cucumber asazuke pickles, and a nice white  wine from Spain - Albarino do Ferreiro(2007) from Galicia.The wine was crispy and fruity.  I love these kinds of easy summer nights.


Recipe:
Enough chips to feed 4 people

8 oz Soba dough -left over from making soba, cut into strips - random is okay
3 cups of vegetable oil

Heat oil to about 320F in a heavy cast iron pan.  Drop 1/4 of the dough into the
heated oil and fry until brown on both sides.  Be Careful not to burn them.
Pat dry on paper towels.  Season with salt or pepper. 

Best served fresh but they also keep well in a sealed container.

Braised Duck Leg with Ginger

Posted on July 13, 2010 at 1:39 AM Comments comments (0)






I never thought I would be cooking with so much duck this year. It all happened because of soba. When I started making my own soba noodles, I acquired a new taste for duck as a topping for soba. Braised Duck with ginger is nothing that resembles a duck confit; it's more like caramels of duck meat. These gingery sweet little cubes of meat make a nice topping, especially on plain cold soba.  Other wheat based noodles and rice work, too.

Fresh duck leg meat is not very expensive, about $5 for two legs at Wholefoods.  With two legs, you can make enough toppings to serve 3 to 4 people.  This dish has lots of ginger so it's quite spicy.  You can cut it back if you prefer a milder flavor.  The last bit of soup is caramelied to give the meat a nice glaze finish.  It keeps in the fridge for about a week, so make a batch.   It also makes a nice appetizer.
Recipe:
Braised Duck Leg With Ginger
Kamo no Shigureni
Makes 2 -4 servings

2 Duck Legs (Kamo no Momo), de-boned
2 -3 tbls, peeled and thinly sliced Ginger (Syoga)
1 tbls Sugar, optional
3 oz Sake (Sake)
10 oz Soba Broth (Kake Jiru)


Chop the duck into ½ cm cubes. Blanch the duck meat in hot water to remove odor.
Drain.

Comine ginger and duck in a medium size pot. Add all the seasonings and cook over low heat until most of he liquid is absorbed and caramelizes the meat.  Let cool to room temperature.  
Serve as toppings for soba or udon. It's delicious at room temperature.



Cut it into even cubes. Leave the fat on the meat for good flavor.

Back to making my own soba

Posted on July 1, 2010 at 8:02 PM Comments comments (0)



Soba
20/80 wheat/buckwheat ratio
Buckwheat origin: Japan
Humidity: 65%
Water: 42%

June was the busiest month of the year, so far. I was completely immersed in the soba and cooking workshops that I didn't get around to making my own soba.  Now that the workshop is over and Akila has returned to Tsukiji, life has been about catching up. There's a pile of stuff to do, but I set aside a half an hour to make soba today.  I like to knead and feel the dough. It has a way of calming me down.  I made 1.2 kilos of soba.  The noodles came out thin and long.  I am going to take some to my neighbor.  

I served the soba with sliced negi, grated fresh wasabi (i found an ancient root one of the compartments.  It was bruised but I peeled off the skin,and there was still some wasabi worth grating.  I also grated some fresh daikon..  I had ginger duck, which I made from leftovers from last week's class. I also deep fried some eggplant.  The soba tasted absolutely delicious and there were plenty of sides to enjoy.






Seduced by Soba - Zester Daily

Posted on May 20, 2010 at 1:33 PM Comments comments (1)




100% buckwheat - Hanmade Kikouchi soba
Soba: Gunma
Water ratio: 41%
Humidity: 51%
Cooking time: 90 seconds
Soba served with grilled Age, Nori, scallions, fresh grated 
wasabi and daikon radish


Check out the new story I wrote about Soba for Zester daily 


 

 




Frozen Soba - Santa Monica's Test Kitchen

Posted on May 19, 2010 at 4:54 PM Comments comments (0)


Frozen soba

I don't buy frozen foods or processed foods but when I came back from France, I found a bag of frozen soba noodles in the fridge and some instant miso soup mix. Ahhh, c'est la vie. Everybody's got to eat.  These frozen noodles are precooked so it's a no brainer for someone like my husband, Sakai, who doesn't like to cook.  They just need to be reheated in boiling water.  Flavor? Let's see.  I am going to make some for lunch.


The Packaging 

There are 4 servings in a package.  This brand was made in Japan.  Although it says Japanese Soba in Japanese, the main ingredient is wheat.  This is quite misleading but it happens a lot with commercially prepared frozen and dried soba noodles.  According to a Japanese law that is still in tact, Japanese noodle producers can call noodles soba, so long as it contains 30% buckwheat.   

I had some homemade Kaeshi (Here is the link for the Kaeshi recipe) so I knew I would have good soup to go with the noodles.  In case you are not familiar, Kaeshi is a dipping broth concentrate made of mirin, soysauce and sugar. It keeps in room temperature for a couple months so I always have some around.  

To make the noodle broth, I mix the Kaeshi concentrate with fresh dashi broth (here is the link for the Dashi recipe).  Figure about 7%-10% Kaeshi for the broth.  For the topping, I sauteed some pork belly slices with onions and scallions. 

When it comes to Soba served in a hot broth, Kake soba, some soba experts say the soup is what really makes the difference, not the noodles.  The good soup improved the flavor of these noodles but the noodles lacked the "koshi" - texture and fragrance of buckwheat. Frozen noodles have a long way to go. What it needs is definitely more buckwheat.  I am sticking to fresh homemade soba, even though there is more labor involved.   

  

Joie de Vivre - Making Soba in Paris

Posted on May 15, 2010 at 2:07 AM Comments comments (0)

100% Stone ground Buckwheat flour, Miyama, Gumma

Water ratio: 42%

Humidity: 55%

Water source: Volvic

Cooking time: 90 seconds counted by Carolina

Location: Paris, France


Hot soba with grilled Age tofu, seaweed,

wild asparagus and scallion toppings. 

 


For my five-day trip to Paris, I packed my suitcase with mostly soba making tools, not clothes. I promised my friends that I will make them soba. I hear about chefs traveling with their own knives. I am starting to do the same. I brought not only the soba cutting knife, but also buckwheat flour, a measuring cup, a scale, a cutting board, bonito flakes to make dashi, wasabi and some homemade dipping sauce

concentrate.   

 

The little   kitchen that could.

 

I arrived at my Brazilian friends, Andre and Carolina's apartment with two bags full of food and equipment. Carolina came downstairs to help me carry the stuff up to the fourth floor. I panted up the stairs. Carolina told me about the ninety year old woman who lives on the 3rd floor of this apartment building. She does the stairs twice a day. Amazing. 

Andre and Carolina greeted me with great music and ambience.  I knew right then that we will were in for a fun evening.  


Kneading the dough on the counter. Wild asparagus are

cooking next to me.


Their kitchen was equipped with an electric stove, the kind that you are not sure if the heat source is on or not. I was concerned if the heat source would be hot enough to boil the noodles, but Andre gave me an instant solution. We used the electric water kettle to boil the water, and transferred it to the pot. You make do with what you have, and we did fine.


For starters, I served Tunisian tuna sashimi with grated wasabi.  The sashimi was tender, the flavor was good. We wrapped the sashimi with shiso leaves and ate it like a taco. There was also blanched baby spinach seasoned with roasted ground sesame salt (made by Andre and Carolina). A spicy sauteed carrots with Thai chili peppers. It was nearly a vegan night. Andre was supposed to make a vegetable and goat cheese frittata but the eggs never it out the fridge.


Cold soba served with a variety of seaweeds, dill,

chives, grated daikon and wasabi.



We made two types of soba - cold and hot. One like a salad, the other like a soup. They both tasted delicious. I garnished the noodles with some seaweed, chopped dill, and chives. This is deviating from the classic Japanese dish, which is served plain, but I couldn't resist the beautiful herbs I found at the market this morning. I am sure basil, chervil, parsely will also go well with soba, but if you want to enjoy the fragrance of the soba first, serve the herbs on the side.

 

Andre and Carolina loved the soba. Andre was preferred the Hot soba. Carolina loved both. For thirds, we had another round of hot soba. They said soba tasted pure, that it was exactly the kind of food they liked to eat.  That's what I love to hear. We talked about starting a buckwheat farm in Brazil.  Wouldn't that be cool? I am going.


 

We ate strawberries and chocolate for dessert. Yummy, evening. Beautiful friends.

Merci beaucoup. A bientot.

 


Handmade Soba Noodles

Posted on May 6, 2010 at 5:46 PM Comments comments (2)


Today's Soba:  10% wheat flour 90% Miyama, Gumma Buckwheat flour
Water ratio: 41%
Humidity: 51%
Amount of flour; 600 grams

 

I tried cutting this soba a little wider today.  1.4mm to see how they tasted.  I like the slightly wider variation for a change.  Soba master Akila Inouye likes it around 1.3mm.  0.1mm can make quite a difference in the texture and nodo-koshi, the sensation when the noodles are passing through your throat.  This soba came out very tasty. 

One thing I can say about making soba by hand at home is that, it's becoming a regular exercise routine. It takes me approximately 20 minutes from start to finish.  I can have fresh soba everyday.  It makes me very happy, that's for sure. This soba keeps fresh for two days, though it tastes best when it's freshly cut.  



Handmade Dattan Soba with Heirloom Tomatoes, Avocado and Enoki Mushrooms

Posted on May 3, 2010 at 3:51 PM Comments comments (0)

 


Flour ratio: 40% Dattan Flour, 40% Buckwheat Flour  20% All-Purpose


I finally got around to making Dattan Soba at home.  Of the 50kg of buckwheat flour that I brought back from Japan, I had 5 kg of Dattan buckwheat from China.  I didn't expect to like Dattan when I was first introduced to it.  People warned me that Dattan tastes bitter and medicinal. But it did not hit my tastes buds in that way at all.  I love the grassy flavor and the mustardy color of this buckwheat. You feel healthy just looking at it.  


Dattan soba is prized in China and Japan for its medicinal properties. Dattan is grown by the Yi tribes inhabiting in the highlands of Sichuan and Yennan province. This soba has almost 100 times more Rutin than normal buckwheat. The popularity of Dattan has slightly cooled off in Japan but there are people who eat this soba and drink its tea regularly to stay healthy. The Yi tribe who eat Dattan everyday is said to have no adult lifestyle related diseases.    


I make a mild Dattan soba by mixing the flour with standard Japanese buckwheat and all purpose flour. You don't taste the bitterness but there is a hint of grass in the flavor.  It is best eaten cold or as a salad.  I used vegetables I found in my fridge - tomato, avocado, enoki mushrooms and scallions.  Any salad vegetable goes with soba.


Recipe:

Makes 4

4 servings of fresh soba noodles  but recipe calls for a ratio of 40% dattan flour, 40% Japanese soba flour and 20% all-purpose flour.  See instructions below.  Or use1 bag dried soba noodles, and cook them according to package instructions.

1 avocado peeled, pitted and sliced vertically, about 1/4 inch wide

1 tomato, sliced thinly, 1/4 inch wide

1 bag of enoki mushrooms, ends removed

Yuzu or lemon rind,  a small sliver for each person

Wasabi to serve at the table (optional)

 Dipping sauce  (here is the link to a quick dipping sauce)

1-2 tsps olive oil or sesame oil to taste (optional)


Make the dipping sauce first and keep it chilled.  

To make Dattan soba noodles by hand, use boiling water, instead of water , as called for in the standard recipe I provided.  Use a paddle to mix the hot flour.  When the water is incorporated into the flour and cooled down, then use your hands to mix the flour and proceed according to the soba recipe. Cook the noodles just before serving the dish. Add some oil to the noodles. (optional). 

Slice the vegetables.

Arrange the soba noodles on a plate and arrange the vegetables  and Yuzu on top.  Pour the sauce at the table,  just before serving.  Serve with wasabi (optional).


Option: You can use other vegetables of your choice - sauteed shitake mushrooms, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, etc.



Minori - Handmade Soba Restaurant in Tokyo

Posted on April 1, 2010 at 7:27 AM Comments comments (0)




Kakoshi - Soba Master

One of the first people to ever teach me how to make soba by hand was Kakoshi.  Although he ls still in his early thirties, he has been making soba for nearly 10 years. Three years ago, he went back to school to polish his techinques in artisinal soba making at the Tsukiji Soba Academy.  When I met Kakoshi last summer, he was working as an Assistant/Apprentice there. I spent a half day at the Academy where I got to watch Akila Inouye's soba demonstration. Then when it came to hands-on soba making, Kakoshi stood by my side and showed me how. Even though my noodles looked more like Udon than Soba in width, he assured me that my soba will taste good, and they did.  Before leaving the Academy that day, Kakoshi told me that he would soon be leaving the Academy to open Minori, an artisinal soba restaurant in his hometown Akishima.   

Akishima is in the outskirts of Tokyo, bordering Yamanashi prefecture. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there from Shinjuku.  For that reason, I had been putting off the visit but I really wanted to see Kakoshi's dream restaurant but I finally found some time to make the trip. 


The interior of Minori

All the sake is "Junmai-shu" - made of 100% rice and water

As expected, Minori was an impressive looking restaurant. The facade reminded me of soba boxes stacked together, only they were white boxes. It is a pretty modern structure in a semi rural city b ut it works. Kakoshi lives upstairs. It was close to 2pm when I got there. Several couples and ladies were having lunch.

Kneading and Milling room  

What you see when you enter the restaurant is the little glassed room that is used for making Soba. The milling machine is also in this room. This is where everything begins for a soba maker.  I dream of having such a space someday.  Kakoshi kneads about 6 kilos of dough every day to service his customers; he mills the flour himself.  This is what makes his soba restaurant special. Most soba restaurants in Japan rely on machines to knead and cut soba, and use more wheat than buckwheat flour. As a result, the flavor and texture of the soba are flat.   The artisinal style of making soba is incredibly respectful in handling the soba. The soba maker tries to make soba with premium quality flour, stone-milled, hand cut and cooked immediately before it has a chance to go limp.  Anyone who dares to go into artisinal soba making has to have lots of passion and discipline. Kakoshi brings all these qualities to his soba making.

The menu was varietal. It had everything from classic cold soba with Tororo, grated yamaimo potato, and to hot and soupy, Kake-soba. There were a couple of fusion soba dishes with Italian influences, with such names as Carbonara and Pepperoncini soba. I opted for the traditional course and ordered the lunch special. It was 1200 Yen, which included a dessert and coffee. The appetizer plate came with three items: tamago, a crispy fried soba and Mitsuba salad with Umeboshi dressing, and Tofu made with soba flour. I enjoyed quite liked the soba tofu. It is heavier than soybean based tofu but the fragrance of soba comes through nicely in the custard.  The main course was cold soba and Maitake tempura. Ground salt was served on the side.  

Flat handwoven baskets for serving Zaru-Soba drying on
the wooden lid of the big pot.

I believe the best way to taste artisinal handmade soba is to eat it cold. Kakoshi uses a 9 to 1 ratio of buckwheat and wheat to make the soba. He adds about 42% water in the dry wintertime.  Less when it's more humid. I asked Kakoshi if there was something else I should order from the menu.  He suggested I try the Age -grilled tofu pouches with Negi miso. The age was quite thick than I am used to. The miso was seasoned with Negi, sesame oil and a little sugar.  Kakoshi told me that this particular age came from Niigata prefecture.  I noticed he had other foods of Niigata origin.  it turns out that his father is from Niigata so he wanted to introduce foods from this region. I liked that idea. 
Soba appetizers: Soba tofu, Mizuna and crispy Soba noodles
served with Umeboshi dressing, Tamago

Cold soba with dipping sauce and condiments of grated daikon,
sliced negi and grated wasabi - all fresh.

As I sat at the beautiful wooden counter, I couldn't wait to try the soba. 
Kakoshi's soba was long. Very long with good al dente texture. He said some customers complain that the length makes it difficult to pick up the noodles and dip them in the little cup containing the sauce, but he likes  it long.  I found myself struggling with this length too but it's nice to see someone make long and thin noodles as such.  Believe me, if you ever try making soba, you will soon find out how skillful you have to be to get them thin and long, particularly if it is made mostly from buckwheat flour, which contains no gluten and therefore by nature does not like to stick together like wheat flour.

Maitake mushrooms taste great as tempura.

I loved the lunch, especially the soba and the Maitake tempura. The Soba pudding was also very good. I could eat more.  Kakoshi gave me a tour of the kitchen. It's realy an efficient place.  The milling machine was turning. The hulled buckwheat was filled to the top.  Kakoshi was getting ready for the evening. 

Milling machine 

Kakoshi uses a traditional tin-lined tea box to 
store the fresh milled flour.

I headed back to the train station. The waitress at Kakoshi's restaurant said that the cherry trees in Akishima need a few more days to be in full bloom.  But I got lucky. I found one tree that was in full bloom.



Soba Heaven

Posted on March 24, 2010 at 2:37 AM Comments comments (0)

In case you wonder why I have not finished writing about "My Flour Days", it is because I am still in the middle of my soba apprenticeship at the Tsukiji Soba Academy and I can't seem to find enough time in the day to sit down and blog.  But during my short visit back to LA a  week ago, I invited a few of my foodie friends and had them taste my soba.   My friend Lora Zaruben of LA Times Magazine blogged about the fun evening. 

I will get back to blogging in a couple of weeks.  

Flour Days: Living and Kneading in Tsukiji (3)

Posted on March 1, 2010 at 3:36 AM Comments comments (0)


Zaru Soba  
Organic stone milled soba: Miyama, Gumma
Wheat/Soba ratio: 2/8  
Water: 42%  

-continued from Flour Days: Living and Kneading in Tsukiji (2)

GREETINGS FIRST
I got to the Soba Academy punctually at 930 am.  Akila Inouye, master chef of the Tsukiji Soba Academy and Master Chef greeted me. I was nervous.  I should be. It was the first   professional cooking course I ever signed up for. Akila Inouye got everyone's attention and said,  "Let's start with proper greetings."  So we all stood up and bowed in unison. 

I met Akila Inouye last summer, when I took the beginner's class in handmade soba. He had told me then about his plans to travel to the US to do soba demonstrations in Dallas and New York in the fall. I suggested casually then that if he could make a stopover in Los Angeles, I would try to organize a soba workshop. One thing led to another and we made it happen. We ended up doing four soba workshops in Santa Monica. We completely sold out. (here is the link to my blog about the Soba Workshop 2009). So I had initiated myself as a soba maker in 2009. I was hooked by soba. Maybe it was fate that brought me back to Tsukiji.

From hereon, I will call Akila Inouye, simply Akila. It is not common in Japan to address your teacher by his or her first name but since I called Akila in the US, Akila it shall be. Akila introduced me to his assistant Kotorii. He was a young man in his early thirties who completed the professional course last year.  His name means "Where the little bird lives". It was a little mismatched for someone who was nearly six feet tall. He smiled; we bowed again.

The school provided me with a bandana and an apron.  The dress code was "comfortable clothes."  I have never travelled so lightly, as I did on this trip. All I packed was my Favorite Ts from the Gap and a few pairs of jeans.   And two pairs of shoes.  A pair of street shoes and a pair of sneakers to wear in class. Chapstick was my basic make up. Soba was turning me into a minimalist.

There were supposed to be two other students in the comprehensive soba course besides myself.  I was looking forward to meeting them but they had cancelled for various reasons.  Ever since the subprime mortgage crisis happened in the US, Japan has been equally hit by this global recession. My sister, Fuyuko's pastry school, which she runs out of my parents' house, was  struggling from lower attendance lately. She has had to modify her classes. I wondered if the Soba Academy was experiencing something similar. While the Academy's weekend and evening classes were easier to get people in, the professional course was a bigger financial and emotional commitment. 

For those who want to pursue a profession in soba, by the way, there are different ways you can go about it in Japan. In my case, the goal was to learn how to make good soba by hand, and taking it as far as I can. The possibilities were infinite, including going the professional route. However, it did not seem practical at my age, (you can guess I have parents who are in their eighties) to start out as a lowly apprentice in a soba-ya.  I was thrilled to find a school that can show you the whole spectrum of soba making styles, allow you to make your own choices, and even help you network and find work as a soba maker.  Plus, for the entire month, it would be a two-on-one class.  It was hard to believe the course was going ahead as scheduled with just me. 


WHERE IT ALL BEGINS 
Being a course about making soba, we naturally spent a good chunk of the time talking about mixing flour with water. Sensei draws beautiful charts and pictures on the board, and writes very legibly.  (I later learned that he was a graphic designer/lettering artist before switching full time to making and teaching soba.)  WIth soba, no dough is the same. Humidity, the quality of flour, the speed by which the mixing and kneading is done, the amount of water added to the water, Kasuiritsu; even 1 % of extra water could dramatically change the quality of the soba. Soba is really a living food.

Making dough was something familiar to me from childhood. I remember how fun it was to play in the sandbox, make mud pies, or build sand castles at the beach or play with clay.


Sifted flour


Playing with dough has always had a calming effect on me. There was my mother's dough, which she used to make apple pies. What impressed me about her dough was the enormous amount of butter she used.  She never measured. She didn't even go by a recipe. Yet, when it came to how much water to add to the dough, she was very careful. I believe she even used a measuring cup. She instinctively knew what can make or break a pie crust.  


Sifting the flour


LESS IS MORE

Trying to figure out the optimum amount of water to add to the flour, Kasuiritsu, is one of the critical tasks in soba making.  In January, Tokyo was drier than the rest of the year, ranging from 25% to 35% humidity. So the amount of water we used to make soba ranged between 41% to 45%. Most of the time, we stayed around 41-42%. We relied on the scale and the measuring spoon. A small error  can ruin your soba and your day. There was no formula for figuring out the optimal amount of water for making soba.  Experience helps. Akila said he did not believe in adding more water than necessary because it affected the flavor and texture of the dough. Less is more, he kept saying. All I wanted at this point, was to turn out something that looked like dough, and not a crumbly mass of flour.


LET THE FLOUR TAKE A JOURNEY

After the greetings and lecture, Akila made one batch of soba to demonstrate h is technique. I stood next to him and watched his hand movements.  With soba, the initial mixing of flour with water is done mostly with your finger tips.  Like a piano player who is playing with his finger tips standing on the keyboards. the soba maker too moves the tips of his fingers quickly, making sure that there is no flour that is sitting still.  The hand movements are circular, fingers spread apart. My hands are small to begin with so it isn't easy to keep the flour moving in the large bowl. "Let the soba take a journey," Akila would say. It reminded me of the old saying, "Send your loving child on a journey." which means that the child will mature better by learning to stand on his own feet. Same thing with soba.  The only diffference was that soba had to take the first part of this journey in 30 seconds.

 



The fingers moves quickly to bind the flour with water. 


LET'S NOT WASTE FOOD

Any flour that was stuck on the fingers were wiped off and combined with the dough in the bowl. The whole idea of cleaning the bowl and removing the flour on your finger tips  were to keep flour waste to a minimum.  In class, we used a large and heavy stainless steel bowl. I could hardly lift it.  The traditional soba bowls, Hachi, are made of wood and are much lighter and more beautiful but Akila explained to us that it is difficult to find a tree trunk that is suitable for making a Hachi, bowl, plus the life span of such bowl is not very long. The stainless steel bowls are friendlier for the environment and more sanitary.


Once the initial mixing was done, the next step was to continue mixing but this time with the heel of your palms.  This step ensures that every cell of buckwheat is fed with water and there are no dry cells left. As you work the flour, you can feel the moisture in the flour building.  The smell of buckwheat is slightly yeasty. Now I am ready to bunch the flour together and start kneading, Kone.


GLUTEN FREE 

Buckwheat flour contains no gluten. Gluten is the Latin word for "glue". It is the glutens in wheat flour that gives kneaded dough its elasticity. So how do we bind soba if there is no gluten?   


When flour is mixed with water and kneaded, the process adds strength to the dough, elasticity and helps bind the flour together wihtout relying on gluten.   At the Academy, we practiced making 100% buckwheat soba, Kikouchi, and Nihachi, 2:8 ration of all-purpose wheat flour and buckwheat flour, and some other variations. I found Kikouchi the tastiest of all Soba. 2:8 ratio was by far the easiest to handle while retaining good flavor and adding some elasticity to the dough.



s.  

  The Flour combined with water is darker and mosit.

It is gathered in the middle of the bowl and ready to be knead.

 



I will talk about more about kneading, next in Flour days: Living and Kneading in Tsukiji (4)

 



kabocha Squash next to a bowl of soba with chicken and egg

Posted on February 28, 2010 at 4:07 PM Comments comments (0)

Hot soba with Chicken and Marinated Soft Boiled
Egg and Sweetened Kabocha squash.
Flour: Manitoba, Canada
Wheat/Soba ratio: 2/8
Water: 47.5%


- Continued from Flour Days: Kneading and Living in Tsukiji (1)

The Tsukiji Soba Academy is just a stone throw away from the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market,. I cannot deny that the proximity to the world's biggest fish makret was one of the good reasons why I decided to enroll in this school.


Tsukiji Metro station - Hibiya line

Every morning, I rode in the packed Metro, feeling like a canned sardine. But  you can put up with such temporary discomfort if you know your destination is Tsukiji. It is like visiting an amusement park every day, even though it was nearly closing time when I got there in the morning at around 900 am.

Crosswalk in Tsukiji near Honganji temple

The wholesalers (oroshi gyosha) and buyers (Nakaoroshi-gyosha) of the market were in cleaning up mode by the time I got there. Jyonai(the inner market) closed earlier, around 11 am but Jyogai (the outer market) stayed open till about 2 pm. For the regular shoppers, there was still plenty of action to catch, good fish and other things to buy.  I used to come to the fish market with my mother a lot.  She always bought way more than she needed but that was the price you paid for coming to the world's best market for fish.


Typical fish market shopping basket

January 18, 2010

I woke up at 6 am. It was the first day of my soba course. It is always the loud sound of television that wakes me up when I am at my parent's home in Tokyo. But I wasn't about to ask my father to lower the volume for me. My father is hard of but otherwise, in pretty good shape for a nearly 88 year old person. He monitors his diet carefully.  Never eats after six. Walks everyday. Poor hearing is a minor problem in the scheme of things.  My 80 year old mother, on the other hand, had fallen ill after a bad fall three years ago, and has gone blind. She is under nurse's care and sleeps most of the time. Each day, my father selects a cd for my mother to listen to.  Sometimes, he puts on something jazzy and cheerful like Gershwin. Other times, it's a quiet hymn. My mother seems oblivious to my father kind gestures.  

I opened the window to bring in some fresh morning air into my mother's bedroom, even though it was quite chilly outside. My mother turned her head towards the window, sensing the change of light. "Open your eyes," I asked her.  It's one of the things we routinely ask her to do, even if she cannot see. She wrinkled her eye lids and tried really hard to open them. Her eyes seemed to have gotten lighter in color than they used to be. I held her hand and repeated "Good morning"  She whispers back but it is hard to decipher what she is saying. I  told her I am starting my soba course today. She appeared suprised, then nodded her head. My mother always supported me when I told her about my dreams. I knew she was trying to wish me good luck. 

My father made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast this morning. I hear him complaining that the pancakes are going cold if I don't eat them soon. When I  sat down to eat, he offered to reheat the pancakes. It was ironic that I am here in Tokyo to make soba - buckwheat noodles and what I brought back from the US is a package of buckwheat pancake mix. But that's what he always asks for.  I poured some maple syrup on my pancakes. Father has put some butter out for me.  It's been softened in the microwave so I can spread them over my pancakes easily. My father enjoys having me around. He calls himself, "the butler." Father turned the volume of the television down so we can talk.. But when I told him I had to go to my soba class soon, he was not to happy about it. He asked me the same question as he did the night before.  "Why are you enrolling in a soba course?" The only answer I can give him was what I gave him the night before. "I want to knead." 

-to be continued Flour days: Liiving and kneading in Tsukiji (3)

         

First step of a new beginning.




Flour Days: Living and Kneading in Tsukiji (1)

Posted on February 26, 2010 at 5:17 PM Comments comments (0)


Zaru soba
Sone milled soba from Shibetsu, Hokkaido
Wheat/Soba ratio: 2:8
Water: 42.5%

After being away in Japan for two months, my pets Ana and Kinchan are ecstatic to see me back in Santa Monica. Yesterday, they followed me all day while I was unpacking my luggage and cleaning house. The almond tree in my garden is in full bloom. I am glad I did not miss the spring beat. Tonight, Kinchan wants my undivided attention. She curls up on the pillow near my computor and keeps the jet-lagged master company. Nothing beats home.

As for me, I have two homes. My home in Santa Moinca and my home in Tokyo. Every year, I go back back and forth across the Pacific Ocean like a migrating bird. This time, I had a new reason to be in Tokyo. I went back to make soba. I enrolled in a professional course designed for people who want to open a soba-ya - a soba shop.  I had only taken one soba class before. That was last summer when I took an afternoon session for beginners at the Tsukiji Soba Academy. I never thought I would take soba this seriously but I decided I would give it a try. (here is the link to my blog about the first class). 

On the evening that I arrived in Tokyo, my eighty-eight year old father with whom I was staying asked me, "But why are you making soba?"  My answer was simple.  "Because I love to eat soba. Now I want to learn how to make it. I want to knead." He turned to my sister Fuyuko who lives next door and asked her for an interpretation. He did this several times in front of me and while I was away making soba. I don't blame my father. He thought I was putting my life on hold, including my life in America and my film career to make noodles. There was nothing to hold back.  I just wanted to knead. 
 
Each morning, I left home early to catch the subway to Tsukiji from Shibuya, as my father was getting up to start the day. I have a routine of eating breakfast with him when I am back in Tokyo. He would set the table the night before and turn on the coffee maker in the morning and make toast. We always watched BS Satelite news - which gives you news clips from around the world - CNN, BBC, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean TV stations. This time, I felt rushed in the morning. I had to be in at the Academy by 8 am or 9 am, often skipping this precious breakfast time. No wonder my father was a little crossed with me. At night, I would come home late with a box of soba that I had made I would collapse on my flat futon with fingers still crusted with soba dough and massage my aching back. My sister and nephew would have my soba for breakfast the next day and give me comments. No matter how hard it was each day, I loved making soba. It was like learning how to dance and speak a completely new language. 

Slowly, my father came around and tried to understand what I was doing with soba. He even invited me to have lunch at Yoshida, a vintage soba-ya that his father used to go in Ginza. My ancestors are after all, solid Edoko (Tokyo native) who ate soba. Yoshida was a traditional-style unpretentious restaurant tucked away in a quiet street.  My father pointed to the corner of the restaurant where my grandfather used to sit. I could just picture my grandfather in his dandy suit, sitting there slurping soba and drinking sake. Waitresses in aprons came up to take orders.We had hot soba with duck. I noticed that the noodles looked machine cut. The negi (Japanese green onion), too? These are details that matters to a soba maker that I was becoming. My father, I am sure noticed some of these changes, too but he didn't make a fuss about anything. Yoshida was part of our family history.  He wanted to connect three generations of soba eaters. That was the whole point of bringing me there. It was a lovely gesture.  Later, we went to have sweet azuki bean soup at Wakamatsu, another vintage Japanese pastry shop in Ginza. It was a rainy day but we did everything we set out to do that day. I have many stories like this to tell.  I will start from the beginning.

Early on during my soba training in Tsukiji, I realized there would not be that much time to blog about my soba making experience. So I took mental notes,and decided to work backwards in time to tell you my soba stories later. These stories involve being in Tsukiji every day, working with flour and water, lots of fish, drinking warm sake, and meeting passionate people who love Soba. Soba is by nature not an easy flour to bind together. It takes wisdom and patience to make these thin and long noodles. I learned these facts on the first day of the course, and I am still learning.

Note: Blog will continue in Kneading and Living in Tsukiji (2)


 


Two Japanese Pastas - Wafu Style

Posted on January 24, 2010 at 2:47 AM Comments comments (0)



Natto pasta with scallions


When it comes to fusion cusine, Japanese often do things that I find quite daring mixing native ingredients with foreign imports.  Take pasta, for example. The most popular Wafu, Japanese style pastas are Tarako, salted cod roe and Natto, fermented soybeans. Both ingredients have strong flavors.  Tarako is salty, some are spiced with chili, in which case they are called Mentaiko.  Natto is smelly like cheese and slimy like okra. It is an acquired taste.  Fusing Tarako with Pasta is understandable because Tararko is similar to Bottarga, the dried and cured roe, which is used in Italian pasta.  But there is nothing I can think of that comes close to Natto in Italy. The Japanese figured, if Natto works on top of rice, it can also work on top of pasta, and it does, more or less. 



Pasta Carbonara with Bacon, Mentaiko (salted cod roe) and Chives


When my son Sakae and his girlfriend Bina were in Tokyo during the winter holidays, I took them to an inexpensive neighborhood pasta place in Shibuya that's been here since the early fifities called Kabe no Ana, Hole in the Wall.


We ordered the two quintessential Wafu style pastas. The Natto spaghetti came with a generous mound of whipped natto (fermented soybeans) seasoned with raw egg, soysauce and mustard and served over buttered spaghetti. It was slimy as Natto  should be. People either love Natto or hate it. My son loves natto but he was not crazy about this dish. He said he prefers Natto over rice and not pasta.  I feel the same but many Japanese eat Natto this way and love it.


Bina ordered the Mentaiko pasta, carbonara style.  It was your basic egg pasta with bacon which was coated with spicy Tarako, salted cod roe. She ordered the large plate. Compared to the Natto spaghetti, this one was a winner. I orderedTarako, salted cod roe, and with Squid and Shiso.   Bina's dish tasted better. We all ended up taking a bite or two of her pasta. 


Both Natto and Tarako pasta can be easily made at home. WIth natto, you just take it out of the container, mix it with whipped raw egg, a teaspoon or two of soy sauce and mustard and pour it over hot buttered spaghetti.  Not much to it really.  Sesame oil works instead of butter, too. WIth the Mentaiko pasta, you take the cod eggs out of the egg sac with a spoon, or slice it in half, and mix the loose roe into the hot pasta. Toppings such as chopped shiso, scallions, nori seaweed, roasted sesema seeds, daikon sprouts work for both pasta dishes.

 


Toshikoshi Soba - Passing of the year soba

Posted on December 31, 2009 at 2:53 PM Comments comments (0)


Last sunset of the year, on the bus en route to Tokyo from Narita.

Here in Tokyo, the year 2009 ended yesterday but back home in Los Angeles, there is still a whole day  to go before the calendar is changed.  I wrote a story in this week's  the Los Angeles Times Food Section about the practice of eating soba on New Year's eve to bring good luck and good fortune. If you missed it, you can catch it on-line.  There is also a wonderful story that features Akila Inouye of the Tsukiji Soba Academy and his evangelical mission to promote hand made soba. 

Just in time for New Year's Eve, Akila's couriered his hand made soba to my parents' house in Shibuya where I am staying.  It was so fresh and fragrant, we all took turns smelling the nutty aroma of the soba before we even cooked it.  The soba tasted delicious.  After the soba ritual, everyone went to the nearby Buddhist temple to listen to the Joya no kane - the 108 gongs which strikes at midnight.  Like eating Soba, listening to the gongs is another New Year's eve Japanese tradition. With every gong, you reflect on your wrongdoings of the passing year.  I was, however, too jet lagged to venture out into the cold night to do it. 
But I was happy I got to eat soba.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Hot Pot with Meat Balls and Napa Cabbage

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 4:55 PM Comments comments (3)
Nikudango no donabe


`
Meat balls, napa cabbage, harusame noodles and scallions
are cooked in a seasoned chicken broth. 

The first and best Chinese food I ever ate was at my Chinese friend Peichun's house in Tokyo. Peichun's father worked for a Taiwanese newspaper. He was the Japan correspondent for many years so Peichun did most of her schooling in Japan but at home, she was completely Chinese.  Her mother was an excellent cook.  Their house always smelt of exotic foods and spices- anise star, peppers, sausages, dried shrimp, dried mango, sesame oil.  Even the soysauce  was different than what I used at home.  I remember how my nose would wiggle from all the unfamiliar aromas whenever I was invited to their house. This was back in the sixties. 

Peichun's mother made cooking look very easy. She would stand at the stove, frying up one dish after another in the sizzling wok. If Peichun's father came home from work early, he would serve us the food. and we girls would giggle and eat. One particular dish that I loved very much was Peichun's mother's hot pot with Meat Balls. The hot pot had four huge meat balls, napa cabbage and spring noodles.  I was thirteen or fourteen years old but could eat a whole meat ball.  My friends still remind me of that. Yesterday, one of my old girlfriend, Yumiko, e-mailed me from Tokyo telling me that she made Peichun's mother's hot pot with Meat balls. I got inspired to make the hot pot too.  Fresh chicken broth is key to making a good nabe My meat balls are smaller than Peichun's mother's meatballs but they are made in the same spirit - joyfully.  

RECIPE
Serves 3-4

Meat balls recipe:
10 oz ground pork
 5 water chestnuts, chopped (optional)
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tbls sake
1 tbls potato starch (katkuriko) or cornstarch, dissolved in equal amount of water
1 tsp chopped ginger
1/2 tsp roasted sesame oil
Ground pepper to taste

1 package (5oz) of dried spring noodles (harusame noodles), hydrated
4 oz Napa cabbage leaves, washed and cut into bite sizes, about 2.5 inches wide
1 tsp sliced ginger
2 tbls sake
1/2 -1 tsp salt 

Garnish:
2 tbls sliced scallions or negi

1 hot pot or cast iron pot


Hydrate the Harusame noodles in water for at least 3 minutes.

Put the meat ball ingredients into a food processor.  Add only 1/2 of the chicken broth and pulse until the meat is combined well.  Then add the rest of the broth and pulse again until the mixture is smooth and feels starchy. You can do this step by hand.  The broth makes the meat balls very tender and flavorful.

Bring the donabe hot pot or cast iron pot to the stove or portable burner. Add 8 cups of chicken broth with the sliced ginger, sake and salt and bring to a boil. Then turn down heat to a simmer.
  
Add the harsume noodles and cook for a minute.   

With wet hands, make little meat balls, using about 1.5 tbls of meat mixture.  
Put  the meat balls into the simmering pot.  If you plan to serve the nabe in two stages, only put half of the meat mixture.  You should have about 16 meat balls.

Add the napa cabbage and cook for a couple of minutes, with lid on.  

Test one meat ball to see if it is cooked.  Taste the soup. If it needs more flavor, add a itittle more salt, pepper and sake.

Garnish hot pot with sliced scallions.  Serve in individual soup bowls.



View Older Posts »

Send to a friend

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Upcoming Events/Workshops

August 21-29 Soba Workshop

Santa Monica

http://www.mazumizu.com