When you watch James Udesky make soba noodles, you’re not sure whether he’s a cook or an aerobics instructor. His whole body bounces rhythmically, up and down, side to side, as he pounds and kneads the buckwheat dough, not only with hands and arms but with all his body weight.
“It’s not the utensils you use, it’s the body movement,” says Udesky, who grew up in Winnetka, but who now lives in Tokyo where he is an acknowledged soba authority.
“Soba is good for you nutritionally and good for you physically,” he says as he displays his technique for homemade noodles. For the uninitiated, he might add that soba is pasta made from buckwheat flour, wheat flour and water, mostly in the form of noodles, and that it is an important traditional food in Japan. The Japanese eat soba noodles in various dishes, most often in soups with a variety of broths and ingredients.
Udesky, author of “The Book of Soba” (1988, Kodansha International), has stopped by the Tribune test kitchen to show off his noodling skill. To do the job right, he has brought along the two flours (buckwheat can be bought at specialty food stores) and some basic equipment he likes to use: a wooden rolling pin about 2 inches in diameter and 2 1/2 feet long (any rolling pin will work); a soba bocho, which is a heavy cleaver made from a sheet of steel about 8 inches square (any large sharp knife will work); and a square piece of wood about 6 by 10 inches and 1/4-inch thick that he uses to hold the dough as he slices the noodles, so he won’t risk his fingertips. Also he needs a large mixing bowl, a cutting board and some plastic wrap for unused dough, he says.
Homemade soba noodles can be made from 60 to 80 percent buckwheat flour with the remainder wheat flour, he says. Buckwheat, which comes from the rhubarb family and is not a true grain, has no gluten, so wheat flour is necessary to hold the dough together.
“The more wheat you use, the easier they are to make, but the less authentic,” he says. “Experienced sobamakers use as little as necessary as a matter of pride. Also the grind of the flour makes a difference. Very finely ground buckwheat flour makes it easier to obtain a good dough.”
Soba noodles, like other pastas, are available ready-made. They are satisfactory, but the proportion of buckwheat is usually less than 50 percent, sometimes only 20 percent, Udesky says breathlessly as he rolls his dough into the shape of a cone. Fresh soba has the advantage of being softer and better tasting, “like a fresh apple as opposed to a dried apple.” (Note: For 2 1/2 pounds of homemade noodles Udesky uses 5 1/4 cups of buckwheat flour, 2 1/4 cups of wheat flour and about 2 cups of water.)
While he works, Udesky, who has been living in Japan since 1978, talks of his dream: starting a soba noodle restaurant in Chicago, not a diner but a sit-down restaurant with a soba demonstration stage. Ideally, it would be on the Near North Side and would include Japanese and Western dishes, he imagines.
“I want to de-Nipponize Japanese food. Most Japanese cooking in this country still is being done by the Japanese. Americans should not be alienated from it.”
In Japan, he says, there are 40,000 noodle shops ranging from tiny standup shops in the train stations to complete restaurants. “It hasn’t caught on here yet.”
Udesky began making the soba by mixing the flours in a large bowl, then adding the water bit by bit, squeezing it in quickly with his fingers. “If you put it in all at once it gets slushy,” says the man who learned soba from Japanese experts in three different Tokyo restaurants. “But you do need to put it in within about 45 seconds. Do it right in the beginning and you avoid disaster at the end,” he says. “You could use a Cuisinart, but for a small amount the motor runs too fast.”
The dough kneading process is like “a 20-minute workout, only you don’t have to go to the gym. I made a little soba room in my apartment in Tokyo and now I don’t have to go to the driving range for exercise,” Udesky says, explaining why he is so thin and wiry. “You get that way from exercise and a soba diet.”
After kneading the dough into the cone shape, he flattens the point and molds it into a thick disc, then begins to roll it into a pancake with the rolling pin. Bouncing up and down on his feet all the while, he pushes out from the center, moving around in a clockwise direction.
“This takes lots of energy,” Udesky says, “like rowing a boat. You do it in time, around the clock, row-row-row-your-boat. Aerobic exercise is good for you, but so is making soba.”
The idea is roll the dough into a very thin but uniform sheet. Thick buckwheat noodles are called “country style.” Thinner noodles show skill on the part of the noodlemaker and are easier to suck down, he says: “They don’t need chewing.”
The Japanese have been making soba noodles since about A.D. 1600, though buckwheat, which grows better in the mountains than wheat or rice, has been a crop since the 8th Century. It took a Korean priest to show the Japanese how to incorporate wheat flour into the buckwheat, Udesky says.
After he has worked the dough into a large, thin pancake, he folds it into several layers, then cuts the noodles using the thin board as a guide. After several slices, he seizes them and shakes them out into separate, tentacle-like strands.
Udesky makes it all look easy: He’s had 14 years of experience. Now a caterer in Japan, he calls himself the First Soba Master of the West and performs soba demonstrations, as much an entertainer as a cook. He even sells his soba at a Tokyo department store, he says.
Besides noodles, he makes buckwheat cookies and fried soba strings (like string potatoes) flavored with mustard, curry or sesame, and even a soba mousse in green tea or coconut flavors.
Cooking the noodles is the simplest part. He plunks the strands into a pot of boiling water for just 1 1/2 minutes, then drains them in a colander. Then he rinses them in a large bowl with cool water about 10 seconds, draining them again. Once more he rinses the noodles in the bowl, “to remove any glue that would cause them to adhere to each other.”
In the test kitchen we eat them plain-no soup, no sauce-using our fingers, standing over the bowl . . . the whole batch.
“The Japanese word to describe mouth feel is hagotae,” Udesky says. “It means `good against the teeth,’ a little like al dente.”
The soba noodles are hagotae, plus-soft, nutty, delicious. It is an experience in pasta purity, just flour and water and all that exercise.
SOBA SALAD
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 4 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
This recipe, adapted from “The Book of Soba,” is good for warding off summer heat. The broth can be homemade or made from an instant Japanese flavor base. The key, says author James Udesky, is to prepare a good seasoning and to attain an appetizing balance of color.
1 1/4 cups chilled chicken or seafood broth, see recipe below
12 stalks asparagus
1/4 red onion
1 cucumber
2 tomatoes
4 leaves lettuce
1 1/4 pounds ham, optional
1 1/4 pounds homemade soba noodles or 1 pound dried soba noodles
1 tablespoon each: mayonnaise, French salad dressing
1. Make the broth and chill it in the refrigerator (see recipe below).
2. Trim asparagus and boil 3 to 4 minutes in lightly salted water in a large pot. Remove and cool in a bowl of cold water.
3. Slice onion thinly. Wash and peel cucumber, quarter lengthwise and cut into bite-size chunks. Wash lettuce and tear into small pieces. Slice each tomato into 8 wedges. Dice the ham. Cut asparagus into 2-inch lengths.
4. Boil, rinse and drain noodles.
5. Line individual bowls with the lettuce. Add the noodles and garnish with vegetables. Pour in broth and add a dollop of mayonnaise and French dressing to each. Mix well before eating.
JAPANESE BROTH
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes
Cooling time: 2 hours or more
Yield: 4 cups
Here is a simple, Japanese-style broth. Mirin (a sweet rice wine) and bonito flakes (dried fish) can be obtained from Japanese food shops or other specialty food stores.
1 ounce bonito flakes
4 cups water
1 cup each: soy sauce, mirin
1. Place bonito flakes and water in a pot and heat over a high flame.
2. When broth starts to boil, skim off white foam and lower heat to medium low for 2 minutes. Flame should be hot enough to just keep flakes aloft and moving.
3. Pour through a cloth-covered strainer, then return to stove. Turn flame to high and when broth begins to boil at rim, add soy sauce and mirin. Return to boil, then turn off heat and remove pot from stove. Cool several hours in refrigerator.
