DashiDashi

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?