How to boil dry soba noodles to make them delicious/Toranosuke Katayama

日本蕎麦保存会

Commentary = Toranosuke Katayama
Click to link to Toranosuke Katayama’s official website.

Dried soba noodles can be surprisingly delicious if boiled correctly.
This is the correct way to boil.

Dried soba noodles are so delicious that they can be mistaken for handmade soba noodles.

Buy dried noodles from a supermarket or mail order, and enjoy delicious soba with your family and friends.

【How to boil dry soba noodles to make them delicious】

1. Use a large pot
2. Boil a lot of water
3. Boil only the amount for one person at a time
4. Hot water maintains high temperature
5.Do not pour water
6, keep time in hot water
7. Wash with water after boiling
8. Rinse it with cold water to make it firmer and tastier
9. Use delicious “Soba Tsuyu”
10. Use grated daikon radish as a condiment
11, eat immediately

I will explain in detail how to boil soba dried noodles correctly.

1. Use a large pot

The secret to how to boil dry noodles deliciously is here. “Use a large pot”. If you use a large pot, you will definitely become a soba master.

2. Boil a lot of water

Put water in a large pot for about 7 to 8 minutes and put it on the fire.

Adding too much water increases the risk of boiling over when the noodles are boiled.

On the other hand, there is no point in using a large pot if you only put in a small amount of water.

About 70% to 80% of the amount is the appropriate amount to boil delicious soba.

If you put 8 minutes (4 liters) of water in a pot that can hold about 5 liters, it will look like the picture below.

It now has 4 liters of water.
The instructions on the dry noodle product package instruct you to use more than 1.5 liters of hot water to boil one serving (about 100 grams).
However, if you use this amount of hot water with a margin, you can make delicious soba.

I will explain why I use a lot of hot water.
If you put dried noodles into boiling water, boiling will subside once.

This is to minimize the time it takes to boil again.
The shorter it boils again, the tastier the buckwheat will be.

Heat this pot and bring it to a full boil.

3. Boil only the amount for one person at a time

Please consider that one serving of noodles (about 100g) in 1.5 liters of hot water is the maximum suitable for boiling at one time.

The key to making delicious soba is to use as much water as possible and use as little noodles as possible.

4. Hot water maintains high temperature

It is important to keep the hot water in the pot as hot as possible.

The reason why only a small amount of noodles are put in a lot of hot water is that if you add a lot of noodles at once, the temperature of the hot water will drop temporarily.

Household gas has a weak heating power, so it takes time to re-boil the water once it has gone down.

This is the biggest reason why boiling noodles fails.

Even if it is boiled for the specified time, the soba will be undercooked.

Once you have added the noodles, put the lid on the pot and remove the lid as soon as it boils again.

This way you can reboil in the shortest amount of time.

At this time, if you use a transparent glass lid, you can see when it boils again, so you can prevent it from boiling over.

5.Do not pour water

If you add water just because the hot water is about to boil over, it will fail.

Since the incoming water is cold, the temperature of the hot water drops rapidly and it takes a long time to boil again.

Therefore, please avoid adding water and reduce the heat once to prevent it from boiling over.

Occasionally lift the noodles with chopsticks to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

6, keep time in hot water

Manufacturers of dried noodles repeat tests many times and write the optimal boiling time in the manual.

As long as you use a lot of water and boil a small amount of noodles, if you boil them for the amount of time that is instructed, the noodles will be delicious.

As an exception, if you boil it at a high altitude, the boiling point is low, so the temperature of the water does not rise even if it is boiling, and it may not be boiled enough.

At the end of the boiling time, take out a couple of noodles, give them a quick dip in water, and taste them.

If you follow the instructions here, it should be delicious.

7. Wash with water after boiling

After boiling, remove the noodles from the hot water immediately and wash them thoroughly under running tap water.

By rubbing the surface with your hands to remove the sliminess from the surface, you can prevent the noodles from sticking together even if it takes a while to eat.

8. Rinse it with cold water to make it firmer and tastier.

In seasons when the tap water is lukewarm, soaking the noodles in ice-cold water for a few seconds after washing will make the noodles firmer and tastier.

However, if it is too cold, it will become difficult to appreciate the taste of noodles such as 100% buckwheat noodles, so be careful not to cool it too much.

When serving on a plate, it will be easier to eat and will look nicer if you put as much as you can scoop with chopsticks at a time.

盛り付け方

9. Use delicious “Soba Tsuyu”(soba sauce/soba soup)

Once you have delicious soba noodles, mix them with delicious soba sauce and enjoy.
If you stick to the taste of the soba sauce, you can enjoy even more delicious soba.

There are also commercially available concentrated types of tsuyu that are delicious, so please choose and buy.

⬇︎”Delicious Soba Tsuyu Grand Prize 2023″ has been decided.

10. Use grated daikon radish as a condiment

The most recommended condiment to bring out the deliciousness of soba is grated daikon radish. A slightly spicy radish is ideal.

Put the grated daikon radish into the soba sauce and dip the noodles into it.Delicious soba becomes 2, 3 times more delicious.

11, eat immediately

This is important, after all. After a while, you can even say that it is no longer soba.

Soba is a food of time, temperature and timing.

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★The 2022 Grand Prix of the “Oishii Soba Dried Noodles Grand Prize”, which determines the best soba noodles in Japan, has been decided. Click to see⬇︎