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50% Tartan buckwheat (Anson Mills)

25% Hitachi Akisoba buckwheat 

20% "00" (Anson Mills)

5%  Cornmeal (Anson Mills)

50% water

The challenge of making soba noodles in the US is finding buckwheat flour that's milled for soba. I never knew how complex the growing, milling and storing process can be until I started making my own noodles.  The quality of flour makes all the difference. I have been bringing the flour from Japan. It takes up all the space in my suitcase. But it doesn't make too much sense to be lugging flour back and forth across the sea. I want to make soba with domestic buckwheat flour. So I have started exploring.

What's available in the US is mostly flour suitable for making pancakes and bread, and not for making soba noodles. The flour is too dry and not fresh. 

I love pure buckwheat soba. The buckwheat flour that's I found in the US needs a binding agent for it to turn into soba.   

The tartary buckwheat from Anson Mills is fresh and has moisture.  It is very tasty and when blended with wheat flour, it makes good soba. Tartary buckwheat's origins are in the highlands of the Himalayas. Anson has farmers growing it in the US organically.   Tartan buckwheat has higher rutin (an anti-oxident) than regular buckwheat so people in Asia consider it medicinal.  It has a slightly bitter flavor, which I like and a beautiful mustard color.  

Today, I blended tartary buckwheat flour with Japanese buckwheat and Anson Mill's corn meal, and a very fine wheat flour from the same called, Farina di Maccheroni ‘oo’ Crema.  'oo".  "oo" is the binding agent. I  mixed in some cornmeal to the blend, just for fun.  I was inspired to do this after eating a buckwheat cornmeal scone for breakfast this morning, which I liked. 

But I am still on experiment stage. These noodles tasted delicious but they came out uneven - some long, some short and wavy.  The dough is not stable yet.  I am going to keep trying for better results.