Experiment: Hand-made Cha Soba

In this Information Age where anything you can't find on Wikipedia (or Facebook) isn't worth knowing and where most arguments can be conclusively settled with a web-enabled phone and Google, it can be a disconcerting experience when, posed with a seemingly simple query, the World Wide Web shrugs its metaphorical shoulders and goes back to its prime purpose: supplying YouTube videos of sleepy kittens to the masses.

In this case, the topic was hand-made soba noodles and the burning question: can a layperson (i.e. someone who's not spent ten years up a mountain with a soba master) make them at home?

Apart from an article in the LA Times, and a few whispers in the blogosphere (some tales of success, some of woe), there seemed to be little written, in English at least, on this pursuit. Was this a fool's errand? Or was this the best-kept secret of soba-fiends around the world?

I had one shred of hope. In his section on noodles, Tsuji gives a simple recipe for soba or udon, depending on what flour you use. If Tsuji expected a Western audience to be able to recreate this recipe two decades ago, then the holy grail of home-made soba might just exist.

Unfortunately, back on Google, there was a resounding silence on where to find the actual ingredients: specifically, soba (buckwheat) itself. No matter how many variations of 'soba', 'buckwheat', and 'flour' I threw at the search box, I couldn't find a single UK importer/vendor of Japanese soba-ko.

In the end, I bought a bag of the only buckwheat flour I could find, the Doves Farm brand, and armed with the 80:20 golden ratio of buckwheat to plain white flour, a large bowl, and cup of mildly-salted water, I got to work.

Four hours later (including resting the dough), the verdict was in: although the buckwheat flour gave off a strong nutty flavour when kneaded, the final cooked result, though fun to make, lacked the bite and flavour of store-bought packet soba.

Undeterred (once bitten, twice as hungry), for the next attempt I added a tablespoon of matcha powder to the flour mix. [Blame all the matcha madness, not me.] At this point, the flour took on a very pale green tint. It was only after adding water that that familiar mossy-green hue appeared, and the real fear of serving up Ninja-Turtle Noodles arose.

Sadly, once again my home-made soba failed the taste test. If anything, the matcha made the soba more brittle and a bit grainy.

For now then, the soba-trials are on hold until I can get my hands on some proper soba-ko.

To commiserate, readers, tell me: what's been your biggest kitchen failure to date?

Comments

[Sasa]

Kitchen failure, hm. Once I was doing catering for a huge (like 2500 people) event and the chef told me he used 1 cup of salt to flavour the last batch of cream cheese pots so I went ahead and did that too...Unfortunately, seasalt and earth salt or whatever the other kind is called have WILDLY different saltiness levels and um, yeah. Had to chuck out 1250 person's worth of cheese.
Oops.
Sometimes at a health food store, they'll grind the grain for you - that's how I got my buckwheat flour though not sure if it would make any difference.

[Francisco]

1. I'm genuinely awed by your ambition. Home-made Soba. Zany stuff.

2. I once tried to make fondue from scrach and ended up with a massive ball of decidedly non-molten swiss cheese.

[asiansupper]

i, too, seem to fall victim to this matcha madness you speak of ... a little matcha here, a little match there...

[Lizzie]

I've tried to make foccacia twice now and both times they've turned out like cardboard....

Still, they look pretty even if they didn't taste great!