Homemade Buckwheat Noodles

How to make soba noodles from scratch. I looked on YouTube for the buckwheat to flour ratio, and the first recommended video was on Japanese 101 cooking. In the video, the demonstrator cooks up a package of soba noodles and proceeds to plate it with other ingredients. This is not what homemade noodles means! So anyways. This recipe ratio is from Food52, and I must say, if you sub the spelt flour for all purpose flour, the taste is.. hideous. I mean, it doesn't taste like any commercially made soba noodle I ever ate at home or at a restaurant. I don't quite know what spelt flour tastes like; though I've heard it is a healthier alternative to all purpose white flour; even though spelt is just hulled wheat berries. It makes me wonder what the actual difference is between "white" unbromated/unbleached flour and spelt flour since both are using hulled wheat. Maybe it's a marketing thing. It simply boggles the mind how we lie to ourselves about what is and isn't healthy for food ingredients. Though, I've read that while spelt is a wheat, it's a cousin of modern wheat and more nutritious. I digress. This post isn't about the nuances of wheat plants.

For the noodles...

1 c buckwheat flour + more for rolling
1/2 c kamut or white spelt flour (can substitute AP flour)

up to 150 ml hot water

For my climate (Pacific Northwest) and season (late summer), there is some humidity in the air and I used 120 ml of water in this batch which made 10.78 oz of fresh noodles.

Directions

In a bowl, mix the two flours together and gradually add hot water until a shaggy/rough dough forms. Sprinkle buckwheat flour onto your work surface and knead the dough until all the flour is combined (no dry spots remain) and the dough ball is smooth.

Once you have rolled the dough out into a big rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with buckwheat flour, then fold the top third down and the bottom third up, like you are folding a 3-page brochure. You can trim the edges if straight edges are important to your noodle making but it is not necessary since they come out terribly shaped no matter how you cut these with a chef knife. 

With your hands, shape it into a rectangular blob and start rolling it out until it is 1/4 a centimeter thick. Tessie Woo cuts her noodles thicker for her dish on Food52, but I'm sure you've had noodles that you've either bought at the store or had at a restaurant. Cut the noodles to that imaginary width. For me, I aimed for 1/4 to 1/2 centimeter wide, which is still pretty wide for a soba noodle.

Toss the cut noodles in buckwheat flour to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add a large handful of noodles to the water. Boil for 1-2 minutes, then drain and rinse in cold water or let drain/cool in an ice water bath.

End notes:

I think I'll stick to making ramen noodles from scratch. While they take longer to prep, they don't have the grainy "I'm eating sand" texture that buckwheat noodles have.

Kitchen Notes: Yeast, Part II

The type of bread yeast used depends marginally on the type of breads you are making and how controlled the environment is for bread making (bread machine vs oven). If you're not an avid baker, you are not going to know the difference between the types of yeast nor should you (there really is no difference, unless you need the yeast to ferment faster in a shorter span of time). Is it a noticeable difference in taste? Hmm, that'd be like comparing the taste differences in same flavor carbonated water of different brands where the mineral ratio of different water sources and final product pH are what makes the taste difference.

Did you know that the company that makes SAF also makes Red Star?

Types of Bread Yeast

• Active Dry Yeast (what I use in all these recipes) - requires warm water to activate
• Instant Yeast - does not need to be proofed before using; also known as Fast-Rising, Rapid-Rise, Quick Rise, or Bread Machine Yeast
• Fresh Yeast (this is exceptionally hard to find in the US) - same organism as the active dry or instant yeast and packaged in small bars or cake form; short shelf life
• Osmotolerant Yeast - specific to sweet doughs, such as cinnamon rolls, danishes, or brioche rolls; SAF Gold Instant Yeast

What about Nutritional Yeast? Well sorry, you can't use it like the aforementioned bread yeasts. This yeast is for eating. It's high in B-vitamins and is sometimes used as a flavor replacement for dairy cheese in some vegan recipes. It brings a savory taste to some dishes, such as popcorn-style (breaded and deep fried) cauliflower florets.

Brands of Yeast Commonly Found in the US:

• Red Star
• SAF
• Fleischmann's (typically in 3-pouch packets and 4-oz jars)

Additives in Yeast (and what they do):

• alpha-amylase (food enzyme that helps in processing starch)
• ascorbic acid (weakens the gluten in longer fermented breads, helps the dough relax and increases a faster rise); you'll know if a miller has added it to the flour because it'll be listed on the ingredient label (required by law)
• calcium sulphate (yeast food; also, this is Plaster of Paris)
• sorbitan monostearate (abbreviation SMS), or Span 60, is an emulsifier esterified from sorbitol and stearic acid with the European food additive

Examples of Yeast with Additives:

• SAF Red Instant Yeast: Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid
• Hovis Yeast: Dried Yeast (92%),Stabiliser (Calcium Sulphate),Emulsifier (Sorbitan Monostearate),Flour Treatment Agents (Ascorbic Acid, Enzyme (Alpha Amylase)
• Red Star Organic Instant Dry Yeast: Organic Yeast, Ascorbic Acid. Contains: wheat
• SAF Gold Label instant yeast: Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid

Uses:

• SAF Gold Instant Yeast for doughs with 10% or more by weight added sugar
• SAF Red Instant Yeast or Red Star Instant Dry Yeast for regular "lean" breads, less than 5% sugar
• Fresh yeast for a long, slow rising time

Alternatives to Commercial Bread Yeast:

• Barm, a beer-making byproduct from the 1st or 2nd fermentation stage that's usually tossed by the brewer; used extensively in pre-19th century cooking; learn how to do this at The Fresh Loaf, My Love of Baking, or Joe Pastry
• Wild Yeast, probably not going to happen in an urban environment or if you live in a downtown metropolitan area; useful in making a brewing starter, sourdough starter, or homemade natural sodas
• Make a wild yeast starter using juniper berries
• Fruits with wild yeast: juniper berries, elderberries, wild grapes, blueberries, figs, Oregon grape berries
• Substitution: per 1 tsp yeast = 0.5 tsp lemon juice and 0.5 tsp baking soda -- this produces a chemical reaction (carbon dioxide) in the dough that causes the bread to rise. You can use this in sweet breads (not offals) such as banana bread or a quick bread.

How to Make Vanilla Almond Milk from Scratch

My biggest gripe about the rising trend in alternative "milk" beverages are all the fillers that are in an 8 oz glass of it. Take a look at the fillers in these almond milk brands:

Silk: Natural Flavor, Locust Bean Gum, Sunflower Lecithin, Gellan Gum. Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin E Acetate, Zinc Gluconate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D2

What the hell is "natural flavor" as its own ingredient??

Blue Diamond: Evaporated Cane Juice, Calcium Carbonate, Sea Salt, Potassium Citrate, Carrageenan, Sunflower Lecithin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D2, D-Alpha-Tocopherol (Natural Vitamin E)

So Delicious: Dried Cane Syrup, Pea Protein, Rice Protein, Calcium Phosphate, Magnesium Phosphate, Carrageenan, Natural Flavor, Locust Bean Gum, Kosher Sea Salt, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D-2, L-Selenomethionine (Selenium), Zinc Oxide, Folic Acid, Vitamin B-12

Protein powder?? WTF!

Pacific Almond: Dried Cane Syrup, Potassium Citrate, Sea Salt, Carrageenan, Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D2

Trader Joe's: Tricalcium Phosphate, Sea Salt, Gellan Gum, Dipotassium Phosphate, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavors, Sunflower Lecithin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D2, Dl-Alpha Tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E)

Hands down, if you can handle cow's milk, it is the only way to go for ice cream, milk shakes, pudding, cheese, etc. When you look at the packing for organic milk, it has one ingredient: organic milk. No fillers, nada. Just juice squeezed out of cow udders. Anyhow, I think I'm going to post a homemade almond milk recipe now. 

Homemade: How to Make Rice Milk from Scratch

I started this recipe with the idea of making rice milk from scratch. How hard could it be? It's just water and rice together.. right? Well, it turns out that ratios are everything and what came out of this experiment looks a lot like I just puréed plain rice congee in a food prep and added a touch of sugar and some flavoring. I got onto this idea since commercially available rice milk has all these other things in it that shouldn't be there, such as expeller pressed safflower oil and/or sunflower oil and/or canola oil, and tricalcium phosphate.

The sugar content in a quart of plain rice milk (Costco has 24 grams, Trader Joe's has 40 grams) is a bit high, considering that there are roughly 4 grams of sugar per teaspoon. The average cup of plain, unsweetened rice milk should be around 50 calories; but as a beverage, it has to compete with cow's milk and other "milk" products, so with all the fillers, it is now 160 calories per cup. Sugar is added and that fakes the brain out into thinking it is getting something good. I started this batch with 2 tbsp organic sugar, which comes out to just over 60 calories per cup. 

This particular batch yielded 3 quarts of not-quite rice milk. I wasn't terribly keen on using an exact measurement of water in the cooking phase.

Onto the recipe...

Ingredients

1 c jasmine rice (white or brown, doesn't matter)
2 qt filtered water
sweetener, to taste
1 tsp vanilla extract or almond extract (optional)
pinch of sea salt, to taste (optional)

Directions

1. Start off by putting the rice into a large pot and rinsing the rice a few times. Strain out this liquid and cover the rice with filtered water. Cover and let sit up to 12 hours or overnight.

2. Strain out the water and add two quarts of filtered water to the rice. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 40 minutes on low heat. Remove from heat and let cool. 

2a. (optional) Add any additional flavorings or seasonings.

3. Process in batches in a blender or 7-cup food prep machine. Strain liquid through a mesh
strainer into a serving receptacle of your choice. I am using a 2-liter glass carafe, which I have partly filled with two cups of filtered water to help dilute the rice slurry.

Seriously, I thought I was going to make rice milk. I hadn't counted on the rice totally disintegrating. This is much harder to get the proper consistency for drinking than it is to make almond milk or soy milk from scratch.

[Update: 2014-03-29, this recipe needs work! Do not use. Unless you want a gallon of some very slushy rice goo...]