Making Udon Noodles

** I wrote this several months ago, but just now got my photos to upload. Sorry for the delay!**

On our way back to Kansas City after Christmas, Arman and I stopped at Kusaka Japanese Restaurant in Mineral Point. (For those of you in FDL at Christmas, this was the restaurant my mom was talking about.) It is so so good! I have been craving it since.  Arman had Ramen Yaki with Pork Shoulder, which was pan fried noodles with veggies, pork and scallions. I had Hiroko's Chicken Soup with Udon which was slightly spicy and delicious! Both the Ramen and Udon noodles were homemade. They are nothing like the dried ramen and udon you can purchase at the grocery store. We talked for a bit with the owners/chefs and they encouraged us to try to make them at home, so we did. The very next day.

Making Udon is kind of like making Italian pasta, except the dough is only flour, water, and salt. No egg. I used a combination of two recipes, Recipe 1 and Recipe 2, which came to roughly 3 c. flour, 1 c. water, and a teaspoon or so of salt. You can Google. There are a gazillion recipes and methods. I think it must depend on the region of Japan and your family.

I don't have pictures of the first few steps.

First we mixed the flour, water and salt with the stand mixer and bread hook for about 5 minutes. I scrapped the dough down a few times, as it kept creeping up the hook. Then we let it rest in the refrigerator for about 5 hours. From what I read it is better to leave it overnight, but again every recipe is different.

Then came the funnest part. We put the dough in a large plastic bag, sealed it almost all the way, and spread the dough out with our feet! Weird, right? I think many websites say to do this, because the dough is so stiff. I don't have a picture of our feed kneading, but here are someone else's feet...

I don't think this is how they make them at the restaurant, at least I kind of hope not. Anyways, each time the dough spread out, we took the dough out, folded it in 3rds or 4ths, and repeated the process. We did this about 4 times. Then we let it rest for about 20 min.

Next came the rolling, cutting and stretching. This dough was really really hard to roll. After it was rolled out, we folded it in thirds, cut strips, and stretched the strips out.

1. Rolling 

2. Folded and cutting noodles

3. Stretching noodles 

Next came cooking the udon. After a couple batches, we realized that it was important to dump the noodles in ice water as soon as they were cooked otherwise the texture was off. 

While I was rolling, cutting, stretching, and cooking the noodles, Arman was cooking the chicken and veggies, making broth, and handing me plates and bowls of ice water. Sly took a nap.

We ended with this yummy dish which we ate several times.

We're going to attempt this again soon, I think. Now that we have the process down it should be a bit easier and faster.