Japanese Soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour (which is not actually a flour but milled berries). “Soba” can refer to the milled buckwheat flour or to the actual noodles. Traditionally, Soba noodles are made from 100% buckwheat flour but because buckwheat lacks gluten, all-purpose flour is added to the dough to make it more pliable.
Soba Noodles From Scratch
My kids and I have gotten to the point now where we could make homemade ramen, udon, or egg noodles without too much difficulty. But when we tried to make Japanese soba noodles, the results were disastrous and all went into the trash. Why were soba noodles so difficult to make? What was I doing wrong?
In my attempts to make Soba, I tried adding 20% and then 30% and even 50% all-purpose flour to my buckwheat flour but after tossing two pounds of failed soba noodles into the trash, I was ready to give up!
The dough texture was all wrong and kept falling apart. I couldn’t manage to roll it by hand nor with my pasta machine. When I finally coaxed a few measly strands of noodles from the dough, they disintegrated in boiling water and tasted awful.
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