Food Report – November 23rd

Here is a dish where you will learn how to make the famous Udon noodle like you probably already eaten in a restaurant. It is not an easy process, but bear with me on the making and the results will be marvelous.

Marvelous Udon noodle: (for noodles lovers and )

Ingredients:
100g of flour / person
50 ml of water / person
1 tsp of salt / person

Note:

Making the Dough
Step MtD – 1: Put all the ingredients in a big enough mixing bowl.

Step MtD – 2 : Kneed the dough very well, until it is uniform and homogeneous.

Step MtD – 3 : Fill a sandwich bag (Zip lock type of plastic bags) with the dough. Put this bag in a plastic bag (the sort you can (used to) get at a supermarket).

Step MtD – 4 : Step on the bags for 1 minutes.

Step MtD – 5 : Open the bags and make sure its not teared up and good to be used for another stepping.

Step MtD – 6 :  Redo Step MtD – 4 and MtD – 5, for 10 – 15 minutes.

Step MtD – 7 : Once you feet hurt too much or the 10 -15 minutes has passed, the dough will be finish. The dough should be very sticky on touch. While manipulating the dough it should stick on your hand and fingers with ease.

Making the Noodles

Step MtN – 1 : Take the freshly made dough, while using a rolling pin, flatten the dough.. Don’t forget to add flour on the working surface.

Step MtN – 2 : Fold the dough on itself to remake a ball of dough.

Step MtN – 3 : Redo Step MtN – 1 and MtN – 2 around 10 times. While doing these step start boiling some water, that will be use later to cook the noodles.

Step MtN – 4 : Do step MtN – 1 one last time, with a thickness  of around 1 mm.

Step MtN – 5 : Cut the flatten dough in large band of 5 mm. Once a new noodle is cut, put it in the boiling water.

Step MtN – 6 : The noodle should boil for around 10 minutes. Test the consistency of the noodle, you might want to take them out earlier or later.

Step MtN – 7 : remove the noodle from the water and serve them to your guest/family/friends.
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I am a big fan of Udon noodles. Being able to make them and eat them from fresh was a great experience. We had Yusuke and me stepping on the dough, and while we serve them no one in the crew was aware we actually stepped on them to make them. So we just said that this bowl was made by Yusuke and the other one by me. They learn and were a little bit in shock but the taste changed their view on the matter and we ate all.

As always please try this at home. Very little supervision is required to make, and to eat. Please enjoy.

Claude-Michel Laroche
Mars 160 – Crew Engineer