Last year I stumbled on a video of chef Mutsuko Soma making soba noodles in the traditional Japanese manner. I found it fascinating and, despite not being able to try her restaurant Miyabi 45th yet, I had no doubt that they were delicious. It was time to learn a new noodle (beyond pasta). I figured the best way to learn would be watch a bunch of videos of soba noodles masters on YouTube. They are surprising fun to watch, if you love noodles. Check out here and here.

It took a while to get around to it, but finally the time came to make soba noodles and then got delayed and then delayed another week. I even had the milled buckwheat flour ready to go (see last post) and sitting in the fridge, just no time to cook.

Then one night, as I was in the process of making tortillas and had a pork shoulder roasting and ancho chiles steeping for a sauce, I thought I better just mix up that buckwheat flour and see what happens. As best as I could recall from those video, I mixed up the flour with some warm water, tossed it to evenly hydrate the flour and then formed a smooth workable clay. I failed to measure anything as I went (I generally go strictly by feel when making pasta as well).

Unlike the soba noodles masters in the videos, I wasn’t able to roll out the dough to an even square shape. I was able to get close enough to not lose too much in uneven edges after folding the dough for cutting. For the folding, I milled and sifted a little extra buckwheat flour for dusting as I went and between the layers. I may have rolled it a little too thin, however, as the folds resulted in creases. The dough was surprising resilient though and had a great feel, like a moldable paste or clay.  

I was a little worried that the noodles wouldn’t hold up to the boiling water, but they came out beautiful and firm. The noodles were soft, with a nice bite and flavor that really tasted of buckwheat. For my first try at 100% buckwheat noodles, I think I kind of pulled it off. Fully aware of course that my efforts to re-create these noodles will more than likely not be so fortunate. Since I made these without any real plan and not as our actual dinner, I had no ready accompaniments to the noodles. I ended up adding a dash of shoyu and a tiny drop of sesame oil.  

 

There weren’t a lot of noodles, but enough for a baby and a couple for my wife and I to try. Baby enjoyed playing with the noodles as much as eating them. Since she also loves chopped meat, I added some chopped up roast pork to the noodles. It wasn’t a great combination, so it is good that her palate is still not too discerning.