Apologies for the late posting from the soba class! If there’s anything I missed or noted incorrectly, please do comment and let me know! I’ll correct it promptly.
What we saw Inouge-san make during the soba class was apparently only about 39% of the total amount of flour he usually makes. He used
- 800 g of buckwheat
- 390 g of water
- 200g of flour
- mirin (does anyone remember the amount?)
- Smooth the surface of the dough with your palms
- Use rolling pin(s) to flatten the dough to 5 mm **keep turning the soba dough to flatten evenly and in a circular shape!**
- Create 2 corners in the dough by rolling the dough around the pin, rather than just under
- Unroll the dough sideways to create the other 2 corners **make sure to flour the board, dough, and rolling pin thoroughly**
- Unroll the dough at a 45 degree angle to create an almost rectangular shape
- Correct the shape to more rectangular slowly with a short pin to the final 1.5 mm thickness
- Roll over pin once, turn around, and unroll the dough halfway
- Put a thin layer of flour over the unrolled half
- Unroll the rest over and put a layer of flour over that too
- Fold the second half over the first half and flour half of the top of the folded dough
- Repeat until the dough has been folded into a good cutting size for the length of your knife
- Put a thin layer of flour over cutting board and layer over top of flour
- Use a board over the flour to cut in straight lines **a 1.3 mm width cut is the most traditional size**
- Cook the noodles, drain the water, and eat
This is Inouge-san’s own recipe, which uses less water than usual. This keeps the ingredients’ characteristics, creates a stronger taste, and keeps the noodles not too soft.
Condiments used with the soba noodles were:
- Okinawa brown sugar syrup (dessert style)
- Sliced green onion
- Wasabi
- Daikon oroshi (grated daikon)
- Soy sauce
- Tosa joyu (seasoned with bonito)
The broth was made from: a soy sauce base, granulated sugar, bonito dashi, and mirin.
The softer soba dumplings that were made after the soba noodles were made with 2.5x water by weight with the buckwheat flour. To make these, just stir while heating on stovetop until the water and buckwheat mixture has a dough-y consistency!
According to Inouge-san, since soba has 92% more protein than eggs, eating soba with foods rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium is the perfect meal.