Making Udon

There are many staple foods here in Japan - rice, various types of fish, seaweed, miso soup, and noodles to name a few.  Noodles aren't just noodles.  There are several types of noodles.  The popular ones are Udon, Soba, and Ramen.  There are also Shirataki, Somen, Tokoroten, Himayugi, and Harusame.  Each type of noodle is used in particular dishes and some even have places in the country that they are known for being made especially well.

For example, Udon comes from our little prefecture (think of a prefecture like a county in the US), Kagawa.  The old Japanese name for Kagawa was Sanuki so, Sanuki Udon is particularly well known (even in the states).  Udon is a thick white noodle that is somewhat chewy.  The only ingredients are wheat flour, water, and salt.  Since Kagawa has good water and good salt, we make good Udon.  It is interesting to note that flour here is also not just flour.  We have 3 types of flour - hard wheat flour, soft wheat flour, and all purpose wheat flour.  Different recipes call for different types of flour.

Kagawa is the home of Udon, so it is cheap here.  People eat it all day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is often served in a clear broth with seaweed and some crunchy little tempura flakes, although you can order it with curry over it instead which is my preference.  It is customary in Japan that when you leave your home prefecture you take a gift of whatever your prefecture is known for.  So, leaving here, I should take a gift of Udon to whom ever I am traveling to see.  One of the cool cultural experiences here in Kagawa is going to Udon making school. Yesterday we were invited to join a friend to a special Udon class.  Here is how it went:

First, you put on your cute little half apron.





Next, you sift a bowl of flour by hand, breaking up any chunks.  The next step is to pour a glass of salt water into the flour and mix that by hand.  You end up with a dough, clumpy mess that sticks to everything...




Next, form the dough into a ball and place it into a plastic bag.  Put the bag of dough onto a tatami (woven) grass mat on the floor and begin kneading the dough with your feet.  You literally dance on the dough.


While dancing on the dough, loud crazy music is playing.  Anyone that is not actually working on the dough is shaking a tambourine, a maraca, or clapping.  The music stops a few times so that we can stop, open the bag to remove the dough and fold it into a square, only to dance on it again.  At one point all the men in the room were dough dancing and formed a kind of can-can line.


It was a good time.  No one was a poor sport, everyone got really into it.  Next, you wrap up the dough and set it aside to let it rise for a few hours.



For the sake of time, we set aside our dough and were given dough made earlier by the school.

The next step is to flatten to dough with your hands.  Using all your upper body strength you push and push and push...ultimately you want to get the dough to be just 3-4 mm thick.  

Once done with your hand flattening, you use the rolling pin to flatten to dough further. When you have some pretty flat dough, you wrap it around your rolling pin and roll it some more.

 Finally, your dough is thin, flat, and smooth.  It gets folded over itself in layers so that it can be sliced into noodles.

 

 

 


All the fresh noodles were piled onto a tray and cooked for lunch.

 This is Sayaka, our friend that invited us to join her at the Udon making school.


Lunch was our freshly made noodles, rice, and shrimp and vegetable tempura.

 

The noodles were cooked for us - all boiled together.  Then, at each person's spot at the table was a little fire pot heating the broth for our noodles.  We each got to heat our noodles before eating them.  (I'm leaving out the part of the story where I dumped my hot broth on my lap in an attempt to prevent Lily from doing the same thing...)

 
 So, that's it.  We made Udon.  It was a great time - very fun and interesting.  I think I will appreciate Udon a little more next time I eat it.