Making Udon Noodles

Asian cuisines are among my favourites, particularly broth-y noodle dishes like Laksa or Pho. So I took it upon my self to learn how to make udon noodles.

The dough, I was surprised to discover, is a very basic wheat flour dough, however the footwork (you read correctly) required may deter some; given the dough’s density it requires quite a bit of force to knead, but it’s well worth it, in my opinion.

Ingredients

Directions

• Dissolve the salt in the warm water.
• In a large bowl, combine the salt water solution and the flour.
• Knead with your hands until it is a lumpy mass & transfer it to a clean surface.
• Continue to knead and shape it into a ball —this’ll take about 10 minutes.
• Let the dough-ball rest for a few minutes.
• Shape it into more-or-less a rectangle & place it in a large zip-seal bag or between two sheets of plastic wrap and wrap in a towel.
• Using your feet, flatten it out until it’s ~1 cm thick, then fold in half and knead it out again.
• Repeat this another 3 or 4 times, folding the dough over in the same direction each time —this smooths out the dough.
• After the final folding/foot massage, set the dough aside (still wrapped up) for 3+ hours.
• When ready, unwrap the dough onto a clean, lightly-floured surface.
• Using a pasta machine (for ease), roll to desired thinness and cut into the noodle shape you like.
• Cooking in boiling water or directly in a soup broth until tender.