Homemade Soba with Cold Citrus Soy Dipping Sauce (Kaeshi)
I baked 20 batches of milk bread yesterday and I’m going to bake another 17 batches tomorrow. After not moving around much for the last 3 months my muscles are going through a little bit of a shock, but I’m slowly recovering from the hours of standing, kneading, folding, and running up and down my stairs. I have a few more hours until I start the whole process again and start kneading dough for the next batch of orders. This is a good tired though, because it feels good to physically do something to help raise money and awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement. Social media activism is not natural to me (working on it), but jumping to action through baking/cooking and actually volunteering my time and resources feels right and productive to me. So thank you all who purchased a box!
It was also amazing to meet some of you in real life! The internet is a weird place. It sometimes feels lonely and you’re not sure if anyone is reading the word you put out there or if it resonates with anyone. But meeting so many wonderful people yesterday who have read my rambles and made the recipes on here gave me some much needed motivation and inspiration. For that, I’m so grateful!
Should we chat about these soba noodles before I have to jump back into milk bread land though? I’m sharing a recipe for homemade soba noodles that will beat any dried package soba noodle you’ve ever had. The texture of homemade soba is amazing. Yes, it’s chewy. Yes, it’s tender, Yes, it’s fully of nutty buckwheat flavor! I love it with a cold citrus soy dipping sauce. It’s so refreshing, light, and bright. The perfect summery noodle dish. Keep scrolling for the details and recipe!
It takes a lifetime to truly master soba noodles. So I’m even going to pretend that I’m a soba master. There are varying degrees of soba noodle expertise. True masters are able to make soba noodles with pure buckwheat, but it’s incredibly delicate to work with because the buckwheat doesn’t have gluten to help the dough stick together. Then one step down, while still being at master level, some people add a little all-purpose flour to the buckwheat to help it all work together. However, that is still pretty hard to work and requires hours of practice to get right.
Then there is my level. Someone who is desperately craving soba noodles but is still avoiding going to the grocery store. I tried the 100% buckwheat version (which was a mess) and then tried again with a little all-purpose flour (still a mess), and finally made a dough that has a little more all-purpose flour than what’s traditionally used but still has all that great nutty buckwheat flour. The dough in this recipe is 2:1 all-purpose flour to buckwheat flour which makes it so much easier to knead, roll out, and cut into noodles. It’s sturdy to work with but still has a light and delicate texture when cooked.
I used Bob’s Red Mill Buckwheat Flour for this dough and it has such great flavor. I love it for these noodles and have been having a lot of fun experimenting with it in my baked goods!
You might wonder if you can use a pasta machine to make these noodles and the answer is “yes”, BUT I recommend making noodles by hand. It’s so therapeutic. Especially now, when the world feels heavy and too much sometimes, a brief respite in the form of noodles is worth the extra elbow grease.
Cold Citrus Soy Dipping Sauce (kaeshi)
You can of course serve your beautifully hand cut soba noodles however you want to! In a soup or even tossed in a light dressing with crunchy vegetables. I love a simple kaeshi though. Kaeshi is a Japanese sauce base consisting of soy sauce and mirin. It’s a sauce base that can be built upon into various other dishes. I added a juice of lemon juice which magically brightens up the entire sauce and tastes sooooo good with the mirin. Since days are longer and the temperatures are higher now, I pour the kaeshi over big ice cubes to immediately cool it down and simply serve with my freshly cooked soba. It’s excellent with some radishes and finely shredded cabbage. The perfect summer noodle bowl!
Homemade Soba Noodles
serves 2-4
materials:
150g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
75g (1/2 cup) Bob’s Red Mill Buckwheat Flour
160g (2/3 cup) hot water
Cornstarch for dusting
steps:
In a large bowl, combine flour and buckwheat and whisk to combine. Pour the hot water into the bowl and stir with a spoon or flexible spatula to form a shaggy dough. Knead the dough with your hands in the bowl until you have a scraggly dough ball. Scrape out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until you have a smooth ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Unwrap the dough and divide into 4 equal portions. Lightly dust the work surface with cornstarch. Roll out one portion of dough into a rectangle about 1/8” thick. Dust the surface of the dough with cornstarch and fold the dough into thirds like a letter. Cut the folded dough into 1/8” wide stripes and shake loose the cut noodles. Transfer the noodles onto a plate or baking tray and cover with a kitchen towel while you repeat this process with the remaining portions of dough.
Bring a large pot of water to a bowl and boil the noodles for 2-3 minutes. Drain the water and rinse the noodles under cold water. Serve noodles with crunchy vegetables and the dipping sauce below or in your favorite soups, salads, or stir-frys.
Cold Citrus Soy Dipping Sauce (kaeshi)
materials:
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp water
Ice cubes
steps:
In a medium bowl, combine soy sauce, mirin, lemon juice, and water and whisk to combine. Chill the dipping sauce in the fridge until cold or pour the dipping sauce over ice to serve immediately.