When the weather is hot like yesterday or today I make home-made udon noodles and enjoy it cold. Home-made udon is one of the recipes which I am going to teach for the upcoming Japanese Cooking Course, Essentials of Japanese Cuisine, at International Culinary Center in New York City. It is coming very soon (starts July 19th, 2012). By the way thank you very much for people who signed up the course. I am looking forward to cooking and having delicious fun in the kitchen with you.
At the class after we make the noodles we enjoy it both in cold and hot dishes. Cold noodles is served in a richly flavored nut butter based sauce. We serve hot noodles with a kakiage tempura pancake.
Here is the noodle making recipe and if you have time, try it in your kitchen…honing your skills before coming to my class!
3 Servings
300g all purpose flour, shifted
15g sea salt
135g lukewarm water
In a cup, mix the water and salt. Stir the mixture until the salt dissolves. In a large bowl add the flour and salted water. Rub and blend flour and water between your palms. After making sure that the water is evenly dispersed into the flour, make it into a rough round ball and knead it 200 times. Wrap the dough tightly in a plastic wrap and rest it at 76F for 30 minutes.
Remove the dough from the wrap and knead it about 2 minutes. Wrap the dough in the plastic bag and let it stand for 30 minutes.
Unwrap the dough and thin out it with a long wooden rolling pin. If you are using the pasta machine, set it at number 1. After twice of passing it through the machine, change the setting to 2 and let the dough pass through it twice.
Fold the udon sheet into thirds. With a broad, sharp knife, cut the dough into 1/8th wide strips.
To cook the udon bring plenty of water in a large pot to a boiling. Add the udon and cook it for 7 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your noodles. Drain the noodles and rinse it under cold tap water to cool them. Drain the noodles and serve with the cold ginger spiked, nut batter sauce. Here my garnish is the corn from the market, braised dried shiitake, lots of scallion greens and black sesame seeds.
