Anime Kitchen Cold Soba Final

This week we're making cold soba, a skill that apparently takes 10 years to master... time to get Plus Ultra in Anime Kitchen today. Aprons on, let's go!

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Ingredients:
Noodles
1 cup buckwheat flour (160g)
½ cup all-purpose flour (80g)
130-150ml hot water
Extra all-purpose flour for dusting

Sauce
¼ cup sake/Chinese rice wine/dry sherry
½ cup mirin
½ cup soy sauce
+
1 piece of kombu (5cm x 5cm)
1 cup bonito flakes (katsuobushi), packed
OR
10g instant dashi powder
Filtered water

To serve:
3 spring onions, lightly chopped
1-2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
Sliced seaweed 

Recipes:
Tsuyu dipping sauce (concentrated):
1. In a small to medium saucepan, add the sake or alcohol substitute and bring to the boil over high heat to burn off the alcohol.

You can speed this process along by carefully igniting the vapours from the alcohol using a lighter. Please be careful when doing this!

2. Once the alcohol has burnt off, add in your mirin and soy sauce. Add your kombu and bonito flakes, bring this mixture up to a simmer and allow this to cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool and the bonito flakes to steep and release their flavours.

Do not boil this mixture. Boiling will cause the kombu to begin to breakdown, leaving you with a very viscous and slimy textured sauce.

3. Strain the sauce to remove the bonito and kombu. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary (add extra sweetness with additional mirin or saltiness with soy sauce)

Alternatively: If you don’t have kombu and bonito flakes, replace these ingredients with a 10g packet of instant dashi powder. If using dashi powder, you don’t need to leave the sauce to steep. Just whisk until dissolved.

Store sauce in an airtight container, this lasts for 1 month in the fridge.

When ready to serve, dilute sauce using 1 part sauce base to 3 parts filtered water or to taste.

Soba noodles:
1. Combine buckwheat and all-purpose flours into a large mixing bowl. Add 130ml of water to the flours. Work the flours and water together by hand until it resembles wet sand. Then knead until it forms into a tacky dough.

Depending on the type of buckwheat you’ve purchased; you may need to slightly adjust the measurements. If the dough seems too dry, add water 1tbsp at a time. Alternatively, if the dough is too wet, add all-purpose flour 1 tbsp at a time.

2. Turn out the dough onto a flat work surface and continue to knead until you form a smooth ball of dough that does not crack during the kneading process.

3. Form your dough into a nice, even 1.5cm thick disk.

4. Sprinkle your work surface lightly with all-purpose flour. Sprinkle the top of your dough and rolling pin with more flour and begin rolling your dough from the centre going outwards in long even strokes. Add more starch as needed and continue rolling the dough until you have a large rectangular sheet of dough that is 1.5-3mm thin.

Once the dough is rolled out, generously spread flour over one half of the dough from top to bottom, and fold the dough in half like a book. Then, flour the bottom half of your bottom and fold the top down. Flour one more time, this time across the entire top of the dough and fold down again.

Using a pastry scraper, small cutting board or another flat utensil as a guide, cut your noodles to the same thickness of your dough i.e. 3mm thick dough, 3mm thick cuts. Toss the noodles with extra flour to prevent sticking.

During the rolling process if the sides of the dough start to go astray, gently work them back into straight lines with the side of your rolling pin.

Alternatively: if you’re not going to hand-cut your noodles, separate and roll out the dough into ovals. Pass it through the settings of a pasta roller until the dough is 3mm thick. Then, using the spaghetti cutter, cut your dough into thin noodles and liberally dust with flour to prevent clumping and tearing.

Place on a floured baking sheet and cover while you roll out the remaining dough.

5. Bring a large of water to a boil. Cook the noodles for 1-3 minutes based on your preference and then strain your noodles and rinse them thoroughly under cold running water.

This is crucial for removing any film that has built up on the noodles during the cooking process. After rinsing, reserve your noodles and keep them cold in a bowl of ice water.

6. When you’re ready to serve, drain the noodles of excess water and plate up. Prepare your dipping sauce (1 part sauce to 3 parts water or to taste) and garnish the plate with desired accompaniments.

Enjoy!

Beats:
Hiro No Kage (Shadow’s Hero) [Lo-Fi Remix] by Richie Branson.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV7eKepD9v4IeU99ndTV14Q