A Soba Noodles Class in Tokyo

Keywords:	Pasta ¦ Cookery Class ¦ Japan ¦ Homemade Pasta ¦ Traditional ¦ Spectacular ¦ Reportage
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There is little doubt in my mind that making soba noodles by hand like Japanese chefs is one of the most spectacular cooking skills one can hope to learn in Japan. Not that I am so fond of these buckwheat noodles myself, I guess one needs to eat them a couple dozen times to start enjoying their delicate taste and brittle texture. But working with only 20% wheat content is like a culinary highwire act - there is almost no gluten to save you if you move the dough the wrong way. We are really dealing with the aristocracy of the noodles here.

Another obvious perk is to work with the beautiful meter-long wooden rolling pin and to be allowed to touch the giant, guillotine-like soba knife.

The technique used by Japanese chefs can be used, with some modifications, to make regular wheat-and-eggs pasta entirely by hand. As you see, it is much superior than the traditional Italian way.

We arranged for a private class at the Tsukiji Soba Academy, a cookery school not far from Tokyo's wholesale fish market which trains Japanese soba chefs. The cursus lasts about 30 days and after that alumni go open their own soba-noodles restaurants. Only about 20% of soba restaurants make their noodles entirely by hand like you will see here. Even I could taste the difference with machine made or even, God forbids, bought soba noodles.

The owner is Akila Inouye, a Japanese chef who glows with love of cooking and food. A very nice man, in 3 hours he demonstrated how to make soba by hand and had us make a complete batch each. Mr Inouye's English was terrific and very precise with some deliberate neologisms such as 'You are very good sobatician'.

Mixing
The traditional Tokyo-style soba noodles have a ratio of 8 parts buckwheat to 2 parts wheat flour, called Nihachi Soba (2-to-8 soba).

You start with the flours in two bowls and three bowls of water for a total of 50% of the flour's weight.

We asked chef Inouye what he thought of the beautiful traditional wooden mixing bowl, which I saw in a soba chef shop for €300 a piece. He just made a sign with his head and one of his two helpers literally jumped in the back to bring him a wooden bowl. He really commands much respect with his pupils - very impressive! He thinks stainless steel bowls are just as good and much less costly.

Both flours are sifted in the mixing bowl. Then you pass your hands on the surface to break it and make it more welcoming to the water. You wouldn't want a pool forming in there.

You add the water gradually until the right consistence is achieved. Unlike what, buckwheat is very fond of water and drinks it readily.

The flour is worked into a ball using highly codified, super efficient gestures. Then the ball's creases are all brought on the top and it is flattened until the entire surface is smooth.

This is much smarter and efficient than the way pasta is done in Italy.

Flattening

The dough is gradually flattened with the long rolling pin, rotating it by 30° each time for two complete circles.

The dough needs to be exactly 5mm thick, which the chef checks with a special plastic gauge (you bet I bought him a set!).

This part is where the Japanese beat the Italian when it comes to pasta technique (the Italians catch back later with the sauces). Using a precise technique, the chef transforms a wide circle into a clean rectangle in a series of smooth gestures condoned by tradition.

Now the circle looks like an oval. It is turned 90° and again rolled around a longer rolling pin, then extended with pressure applied with both hands in the center to stretch the dough diagonally.

Using the short rolling pin, the dough undergoes further flattening until it is nicely rectangular in shape. I cannot stress enough how superior a rectangular shape is when making most pasta. You reduce your waste by at least 20%.

Chef Inuye continues to work his dough until it is 1.5mm thick (check the yellow gauge on the left). The dough is so large now that he needs to roll half of it around one of the two long sticks while he works on the other half.

Cutting

A very fine special buckwheat processing flour called uchiko is spread over the dough rectangle, which is then folded 4 times over itself. The uchiko prevents any sticking.

The folded dough is gently pressed under a light board and ready for cutting.

The chef takes out his giant, carbon-steel soba knife and starts cutting the noodles.

The noodles must be 1.6mm wide. 'How do you achieve such regularity?' I asked. 'Easy. Just place your knife at a 1.5° angle and it will push back the guiding board just enough so that the next noodle will be exactly 1.6mm'. Right. There is nothing to tell the chef when he reaches 1.5° so I guess the pupils must get their money's worth if they learn to do it right in 30 days!

Using the soba knife's side, the chef scoops the noodles and takes them in his hand.

The noodles are gathered, then slightly twisted and shaken to remove the uchiko flour.

Finally they are carefully laid in a special wooden box until cooking.

Cooking
Soba noodles of this size - 1.5x1.6mm - should cook in 60 seconds.

Mr Inuye probably owns the largest pot of boiling water I have ever used. He plunges the noodles in there, watches his Swiss train station clock for 60 seconds, then take them out. The cooked soba noodles are immediately immersed in a bucket of ice-cold water to stop the cooking. 'The texture is better also' he said. For a European gourmet it is quite difficult to understand how cold noodles could be better than warm ones but the Japanese do not do such things on a whim. I suspect they must be right but I can't say I'd rather eat them cold.

Chef Inuye asked us 'Are you guys hungry?' - well sure. We ate the soba noodles he just cooked, served with the traditional sugar-soy sauce-mirin dip and freshly grated wasabi. I think I can fairly say I didn't get many brownie points when I told the chef the dip reminded me of miso. Well it's brown and salty at least.

These are deep fried soba noodles served as an appetizer.

Now you try
Suddendly that was it. The chef's assistants had set up two tables such as the one below and it was our turn to try and make soba.

At first everything went fine, but the flattening is really not as easy as one could gather from chef Inuye's smooth movements. But we managed to finish our batch all right with some tips from the three cooks watching us with a friendly amusement and salvos of 'You are very good sobatician'. When I started to roll the dough backwards they laughed (very politely) and praised my 'Advanced soba making technique'. The work is surprisingly exhausting as all muscles are contracted to make a new, difficult movement, and the upper body is leaning towards the table.

The cutting is the most fun. No surprise, it's really hard to get 1.6mm noodles consistently. At some point I put my hand heavily over the cutting board and almost cut all my noodles in half with the pressure. Definitely a bad mistake in a soba academy. But check the result on the picture above, not so bad for a first time!

Although the lesson wasn't cheap - I promised the chef not to disclose the special discount he gave us - I would definitely warmly recommend it to anybody who loves fun cooking techniques, hand pasta making and of course soba noodles.

You can buy all the equipment - sieve, rolling pins, knifes, gauges, wooden boxes and even chef Inuye's own book and DVD - at the academy. The space itself is beautiful, a Japanese ode to gourmandise in light wood and stainless steel.

The chef is really celebrity-chef style and I assume he must be on TV rather frequently as a soba expert. He has alumni all over the world. And a very nice guy too.

Tsukiji Soba Academy
http://soba.specialist.co.jp
a.inoue@specialist.co.jp
Tel: 03-5148-5559
Fax: 03-5148-5510
Tsukiji, Tokyo, Japan