Sanuki Udon, Japanese noodle

Intro

Here is a simple recipe of making Udon noodle from scratch. It takes about 30 minutes or so of preparation time plus 30 minutes to 2 hours of waiting time. I got this recipe from my family (my father makes excellent Udon and Soba, buckwheat noodle).

In the US grocery stores, we can get dried and fresh/refrigerated Udon, and I have been occasionally eating them in the last 20 years. But they are quite different from real Udon. I finally made this receipe recently, and I was shocked how easy it is to make Udon pretty similar to the real one. You don't need any special ingredients or tools. Just all-purpose flour, salt, and water.

Noodle Ingredients

Ingredients by weight: (Recommended, More accurate)

Season	All-purpose flour (g)	Salt (g)	Water (g)
Summer	400	20	180
Spring, Fall	400	16	184
Winter	400	12	188

Ingredients by volume: (makes more noodles, 3 cps of flour is about 450g)

Season	All-purpose flour (cups)	Salt (teaspoon)	Water
Summer	3	4	1 cup minus 2 teaspoon
Spring, Fall	3	3 + 1/4	1 cup minus 1 teaspoon
Winter	3	2 + 1/2	1 cup

Noodle Cooking

1. Mix ingredients
   • By hand:
     1. Dissolve salt in water.
     2. Put flour in a bowl and pour 1/3 of salt water.
     3. Mix with your finger tips.
     4. Add another 1/3 of salt water and mix, then add the rest of salt water and mix again.
     5. The mix is pretty dry. Spread your fingers, scoop up flour mix, and let them drop between your fingers. Repeat this for a minute or so. The mix should become like bread crumbs.

     

   • By Stand Mixer (like KitchenAid):
     1. Pour flour in the bowl
     2. Start mixing at a moderately slow speed (My KitchenAid have the speed range of 0-11, and I use speed 2-3) with the kneading hook or mixing paddle.
     3. Gradually add the salt water, you should be done adding water in 1 minute.
     4. Keep mixing for 2 minutes or so. You may need to stop the mixer, and use spatula to help mixing. The mix should be pretty dry and it should look like bread crumbs.
2. Make a dough ball from the mix, and put it in a "strong" plastic bag. A gallon ziploc freezer bag is at the small end. It may be better to separate the dough into two balls and put each into a gallon bag.
   

   

3. Put the plastic bag with the dough ball on the floor, and put a bath towel on top of it.
   

   

4. Using your heels, step on the plastic bag(s) for 3 minutes. You can keep moving in a circle to get even kneading. Note that this is an important step, and you probably don't get enough kneading if you use your hands.
   

   

5. Take out the flattened dough, make a ball again. Put it back into the plastic bag, and repeat the 3 minutes kneading step.
   

   

6. Make a dough ball again and leave it in the plastic bag at the room temperature for specified duration.
   

   Season	Duration
   Summer	30-60 minutes
   Spring/Fall	1-2hours
   Winter	2-3hours

   

7. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of flour on the couter, and put the dough there. Using your palm, flatten the dough to 1/2-1 inch. Sprinkle about 1 tbsb of flour on the dough, and spread.

   

8. Using a rolling pin, roll out from the center to the edge. You can try to make it to rectangular shape with the thickness of about 1/8-1/4 inch. The first photo below shows the dough wrapped around the pin after the dough was rolled out. This method didn't work so well with the tapered pin, so it is probably better to use the standard technique.

   

9. Sprinkle another 1 tbsp of flour on the spread dough. Fold the dough into 1/4 or 1/3, and cut into 1/8 inch noodle with a large knife. Here I'm using 6-inch Santoki, but 12-inch slicer works better. Cutting it by pushing the knife forward works well.

   

10. After cutting noodle, you can use fingers to separate the noodles.

    

11. Boil lots of water (4-5 quarts) in a large pot (6-8 quarts pot). Here I'm starting 3 pots. I use the largest pot (bottom left) to cook the noodle. Then I use another large pot (top right) to warm the noodle after the first cooking. The small pot (bottom right) is to make the soup. The induction cooktop is wonderful, I prefer it over a gas range.

    

12. Drop the noodle gently into the boiling water. After 1-2 minutes, gently stir the noodle to prevent sticking.

    

13. Use highest heat. After it boils again, lower the heat to medium, and continue for 12 minutes.

    

14. Pour the noodle to a strainer, and wash with cold water. You need to use your hands to wash the noodle, and try to remove the stickiness.

    

15. Noodle is done! The following section will describe how to eat the noodle.

Soup and How to eat

There are several traditional ways of eating it. Kake-udon (see below) is probably the most common. Soup stock is usually made from bonito flake, kombu (kelp), niboshi (dried fish) etc. But these ingredients could be difficult to get. Instead, you can get concentrated soup from the asian food section of normal grocery stores. It is called menmi (memmi), mentsuyu, tsuyu etc.

• Kake-udon (in soup)
  

  

  1. While you are cooking the noodle, start to boil 3-4 quartz of water. This is used to warm up the cold, washed noodle.
  2. In another pan, dilute the tsuyu (soup) to an appropriate dilution (follow the direction in the bottle), and bring it to boil. When it is close to boil, you can turn off the heat. Each person need about 1 cup of soup.
  3. Drop the noodle in the boiling water, and leave it there for 1-2 minutes. It maynot boil back within 1-2 minutes, but it's ok, as long as the noodle become warm enough for eating.
  4. Drain the noodle into collander, and dispense them into individual bowls, and pour the warmed tsuyu (soup) on top of it.
  5. Optional ingredients. You can sprinkle these on top of noodle before (or after) you pour tsuyu (soup).

     chopped scallion/green onion
     grated ginger
     ground cayenne pepper
     raw egg (this is called tsukimi-udon, which means moon-gazing. You can break the yolk and mix just before you eat)
     Tenpura (deep-fried shrimp, vegitables etc)
     Ten-kasu (small deep-fried bits of Tenpura batter, which is a side product of making Tenpura)
     Crab-stick (a little weird, but not bad)
     Nori

• Yudame-udon
  
  1. While you are cooking the noodle, start to boil 4-5 quartz of water.
  2. In another pan, dilute the tsuyu (soup) to an appropriate dilution (follow the direction in the bottle), and bring it to boil. You'll need the more concentrated dilution (e.g. the concentration specified for zaru-soba and somen). When it is close to boil, you can turn off the heat. Each person need about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of soup.
  3. Transfer 2/3 to 1 cup of boiling water to individual serving bowl. You want to fill about 1/3 to 1/2 of the bowl.
  4. Drop the noodle in the remaining boiling water, and leave it there for 1-2 minutes. It may not boil back within 1-2 minutes, but it's ok, as long as the noodle become warm enough for eating.
  5. Drain the noodle into collander, and dispense them into individual bowls which contains hot water. Pour the warmed tsuyu (soup) on small containers (something like coffee mugs) for each person.
  6. You can add chopped green onions and/or grated ginger to the soup.
  7. You dip noodle into the small soup container when you eat.
• Kama-age-udon
  It looks similar to Yudame-udon, but these two taste quite different. The cold water washing step makes the noodle more chewy, so kama-age-udon has softer texture.
  1. After you cook the noodle 12 minutes, do not drain the hot water. Instead, using a ladle, pour 2/3-1 cup of the cooking water to individual bowl for each person. Then dispense some noodle to eah bowl.
  2. Use the higher concentration soup (see Yudame-udon section) in individual coffee mugs as the dipping sauce.
• Shouyu-udon (soysauce)
  1. You can just sprinkle cooked noodle with a little bit of soy sauce.
  2. You could eat it cold, or you can re-heat the noodle with boiling water.
  3. A little bit of Lemon juice (or Yuzu juice which is japanese lime-like fruits) may be good.
  4. Some people sprinkle small quantity of MGD.
• Curry-udon
  Make Japanese-style curry, and pour this on Udon noodle.
• Hiyashi-udon (cold)
  1. After the noodle is washed in the cold water, put the noodle to bowls for each person, and pour 2/3-1 cup of water. You can add a couple ice cubes.
  2. Dilute the tsuyu (soup) to an appropriate dilution (follow the direction in the bottle), and put it in individual coffee mug as the dipping sauce. You don't need to heat this up.
• Zaru-udon (cold)
  1. After the noodle is washed well, put the noodle for plates for each person.
  2. Dilute the tsuyu (soup) to an appropriate dilution (follow the direction in the bottle), and put it in individual coffee mug as the dipping sauce. You don't need to heat this up.