Shokuki: Start with an izakaya and make everyone cry

Udon is a "noodle" dish, and of course fresh noodles cooked with good water are the best.

The noodles at the noodle making factory are freshly made, and the water is natural water from the mountains and Ido, so there are excellent conditions for making good udon.

That is to say.

Water is the most important.

Moreover, often a particularly high-quality water can also affect the quality and taste of the entire bowl of udon noodles.

For Nakiri Erina, who possesses the tongue of God, she firmly believes in this.

Many udon noodle shops are mostly located in suburban areas and use well water. Compared with treated tap water, it is easier to bring out the original flavor of udon.

Some noodles are made in the mountains and use mountain water, which is better than Ido water.

So don’t think it’s weird for people who bring their own bowls and chopsticks to the mountains just to eat a bowl of noodles. For a basic dish like udon, famous restaurants can reach the highest level of cooking.

At the same time, if your skills reach a certain level, you won't be able to make much of a difference. What matters is the raw materials.

Well, for example, let’s talk about the most common thing, soy sauce!

in most cases.

Udon is inseparable from its juice.

But some people will replace the juice with soy sauce to eat it, which is a bit like eating lo mein without the soup and only dipping it with soy sauce or vinegar.

There are many ways to eat udon. The same way to eat udon has different names and seasonings depending on the region. Here are some common ones.

Separate the soup and noodles, dip the noodles into the soup and eat them, that is, a and b are in a separate state.

This way of eating is similar to Chinese noodles. There are tsukemen in ramen, which can be understood as dipping udon noodles.

As the name suggests.

It is eaten by breaking raw eggs into a bowl. Because the yolk of the egg resembles the moon, it is called Tsukimi Udon.

Sanuki Udon style calls this Kamamama. The eggs in the bowl lack a little flair and are straightforward.

…

"Tempura?"

At this moment, Nakiri Erina pointed at the tempura in the bowl and said to everyone.

All right.

Anyone with a discerning eye can tell what's in this bowl just by looking at it...

It is indeed tempura!

"To add tempura to udon or soup udon, you can often see an extremely spectacular army of tempura in semi-service restaurants in Kagawa Prefecture, and diners can choose by themselves."

"The eggs and fried items in Tsukimi Udon and Tempura Udon all belong to the Z in the formula."

"Z also includes many other ingredients, such as fried noodles, chicken and duck meat, which can be added or removed in any combination. Sometimes there will be two or even more."

“Because there are so many types involved, I won’t go into details here.”

…

At this moment.

Everyone fell into deep thought and began to reflect on what Nakiri Erina just said.

There is no doubt that what she said was true.

Udon noodle.

The best pairing is often tempura. ,

The crispy tempura and the elastic udon are a perfect match.

"At the same time, udon noodles are divided into cold noodles and hot noodles, just like buckwheat noodles. The soup is also divided into cold soup and hot soup. Four combinations can be derived."

"The first is cold noodles and cold soup, the second is cold noodles and hot soup, the third is hot noodles and cold soup, the fourth is hot noodles and hot soup."

"In general."

"In summer, everyone likes the first combination, and in winter, they like the fourth combination."

"It's easy to understand. As for the second and third combinations, they are less affected by the weather and are more personal tastes."

…

"I see."

“A bowl of udon, there’s so much emphasis on it!”

Hearing this, Nito Hisako couldn't help but fell into deep thought again.

Nakiri Erina's words gave her a feeling of enlightenment, as if she had opened the door to a new world.

actually.

To be more precise, cold udon can be divided into two types:

After cooking, pour cold water across the river, and then continue to put it in a bowl filled with cold water, which is called cold water udon.

This is the state where the noodle temperature is the lowest, and coupled with the cold juice, it will be really exciting in summer. After cooking, place it in a pot, and the noodle body will be closer to room temperature. It is usually served with tempura and other ingredients, and is eaten with the noodles dipped in the sauce, which is very similar to buckwheat.

At the same time, hot udon can also be divided into two types:

Putting the cooked hot noodles directly into the bowl is called hotpot udon; after cooking, pour cold water over the river and then reheat it, which is called hotpot udon.

The most obvious difference between the two is that the soup of the former is relatively turbid, while the soup of the latter is light.

After you have a basic understanding of udon, you can try ordering the same combination at different stores to experience the difference in noodles and sauce, and find the one you like.

For example: it can be divided into waisted and waistless noodles, thick noodles and thin noodles, cold noodles and hot noodles.

It can be divided into kombu soup base, bonito soup base, soy sauce dipping, curry soup, soy sauce soup, etc. You can combine it according to your preferences.

There are loin, thick noodles, hot noodles, plus kombu soup base, it points to:

The King of Udon is Sanuki Udon.

…

Staple food, strictly speaking.

According to the standard that staple food is one of the forms of carbohydrates, eating good staple food during the fat loss period can help you lose weight faster. Udon noodles can be regarded as a staple food.

Staple foods have their own different glycemic index and calories.

However, the glycemic index will also change differently depending on later cooking techniques and personal absorption physique.

The glycemic index is generally used as a reference for people with diabetes, but it is not so uniform.

Whole wheat and multigrain staple foods have a relatively low glycemic index, a relatively strong feeling of satiety, and a relatively high protein content. Therefore, they are highly praised as the best staple foods, while many people stay away from glutinous rice and rice noodles.

In fact, the intake of staple food can be diversified and can be based on miscellaneous grains.

Ingest refined carbohydrates after exercise, and supplement with an appropriate amount of sugar sources after exercise, which will be less likely to be converted into fat than usual.

In this regard, udon noodles can be regarded as a more nutritionally balanced dish.

Then, under the gaze of everyone.

Nakiri Erina finally left quietly. Behind her, she was still followed by her secretary Nito Hisako.

Looking at the familiar but suddenly unfamiliar figure in front of him, Nito Hisako inevitably remained silent.

After that, she finally said: "Miss, you seem to be very knowledgeable about udon noodles recently!"

"ah?"

Nakiri Erina, who was walking in front, was slightly stunned.

Then, her face turned slightly red.

…

In fact, analyze it from a nutritional perspective.

Between udon noodles and whole-wheat bread, the latter is generally more popular, especially in the fitness world, which highly recommends whole-wheat bread.

Especially the breakfast staple food of many fitness experts is whole wheat bread.

However, compared to whole wheat bread.

There are countless toppings and decorations that can be paired with udon noodles.

What most people don’t know is how udon is cooked before toppings and decorations are added.

First up is the clear noodle soup.

So-called clear noodles are noodles made by adding warm udon to warm dashi.

For clear soup noodles, cooking the noodles is a very critical step. After cooking the noodles, quickly filter them with cold water, then blanch the noodles with hot water, and finally add them to the Kansai dashi stock.

After that, the second type is warm udon.

The difference is that the noodles need to be dipped in soy sauce to taste.

Warm udon is made by placing cooked udon noodles in a bowl filled with soup and another bowl filled with fragrant fish stock.

This type of udon is very different from ordinary udon in terms of eating method.

After that.

This is the third type of udon.

The third type of udon is actually warm udon, which is also a relatively common type of udon and needs to be dipped in sauce to taste.

Warm udon noodles are very similar to warm udon noodles, but there is an important difference in the cooking process.

Warm udon is made by filtering the cooked noodles in cold water and then warming them with hot water before serving them out.

Strain the noodles through cold water.

This extra step makes the warm udon noodles not only taste great, but also very chewy.

The fourth type is dry mixed udon noodles. There are two types of cold udon noodles and hot udon noodles. They are eaten with cold sauce.

To make cold dry-mixed udon, the cooked noodles are filtered with cold water, then placed in a large bowl, and then the fragrant fish stock is poured into the noodles.

Warm dry-mixed udon noodles are based on the cold-dry-mixed udon making method, with an extra step: filtering the udon with cold water and then filtering it with hot water.

The fifth type is soup udon, which is also divided into cold udon and warm udon. The cold sauce is poured directly on it and eaten.

What makes cold udon different from warm udon is that there is an extra step: the cooked noodles do not need to be filtered with cold water. The texture of cold udon is similar to that of warm udon.

The last type of udon is dashi udon.

This is warm udon noodles served in warm dashi. This kind of udon is cooked in some areas of Neon Country (such as Kagawa Prefecture) when making dashi udon. Strain through cold water before adding it to the dashi stock.

Dashi stock, on the other hand, is a stew of radish, carrots, taro, potatoes and other root vegetables.

…

Not all stores that sell udon make their own udon, which means there must be an udon factory.

These factories will provide tables for everyone to sit down and eat freshly processed udon noodles. Eating udon noodles at a Udon Factory may sound strange, but once you have eaten it, it will be unforgettable.

The texture of freshly processed udon is very different from the usual udon.

But it’s worth mentioning that this is just a factory after all. If you want to eat udon here, you may need to bring your own chopsticks, bowls and soy sauce.

As we all know, the three major sides of Neon Country are:

Ramen, Udon and Soba.

No matter what kind of noodles they are, there is always the term "fan".

The so-called "fan" actually refers to "cutting edge fanshou", which is an indicator used to describe the thickness of noodles.

1 times is equal to 30.3 millimeters, which is the length of 1 inch in neon country's length unit; 2 times means dividing 1 inch into two, which is about 15 millimeters, and so on.

This will bring up another issue.

The thickness of the noodle refers to the thickness of the dough piece, which is the length of the other side of the final noodle. Its standard size is 3/4 of the number, but in actual operation, this aspect ratio is not necessarily followed. .

The fan number can be a number between 1-30. The larger the fan number, the thinner the noodles.

In machine noodle making, the cutting size of noodles can be highly standardized, so the number of hands is often mentioned.

That is to say:

26 times, which is about the same as very fine noodles.

The 14th and 10th noodles are thicker noodles.

The basic idea of ​​pairing udon noodles is to pair thin noodles with light-flavored soup bases, and thick noodles with thick soup bases. As the soup base flavors progress from salt ramen, soy sauce ramen, niboshi ramen to tsukemen, the corresponding noodles become thicker in turn.

The approximate correspondence between the number of ramen and the thickness of the noodles is generally seen in terms such as too thin noodles, thin noodles, and super thin noodles, such as:

Maoxi, Dakuan, Chives, Sanlingzi...

The number of ramen in different places can vary greatly.

Among the three major ramen in Japan, Hakata ramen is the thinnest, ranging from 24 to 28.

The second is Sapporo ramen, which is around 22.

The thickest is Kitakata ramen, which is between 12 and 14.

Among the ramen in different places, the thickest is Okinawa ramen, which is 10, and the thinnest is Hakata ramen, which is 28.

The thickness of noodles will directly affect the taste. Thin noodles are smooth and easy to eat, while thick noodles are easy to have more contact with the mouth and have a stronger presence.

…

It is obvious that it is easy to make a bowl of udon noodles.

But it is particularly difficult to make a bowl of high-quality udon noodles.

Although udon noodles do not emphasize the number of bands so openly, the span of noodle thickness may be much larger than you think.

In the broad sense of udon noodles, there are both fresh noodles with a width of 4 to 6, ordinary udon noodles with a width of 7 to 16, cold wheat noodles with a width of 17 to 24, and vegetarian noodles with a width of 25 to 30...

Although the most familiar one among them is the white, plump and cute Sanuki udon among ordinary udon noodles.

However.

The blade band measures the size of fresh noodles.

If divided by the size of dry noodles, according to the classification of broad udon noodles, those with a length greater than 4.5 mm and a width less than 2 mm are udon noodles.

Those longer than 1.7 mm are ordinary udon noodles, those between 1.3 and 1.7 mm are cold wheat noodles, and those less than 1.3 mm are plain noodles.

As for soba noodles.

The serious Edo soba noodle craftsmen have strict regulations on how thick the noodles should be cut, 28 soba noodles.

That is, 20% wheat flour and 80% buckwheat flour.

Medium-thick noodles must be cut into 23 pieces per inch, and the number of modern soba noodles is usually between 18 and 24. However, soba noodles of other widths also exist.

From the overall shape of the noodles, Japanese noodles are divided into straight noodles and curly noodles.

Among them, curly noodles have a more distinct taste.

And straight noodles have a stronger ability to adhere to soup because the gaps between the noodles are small.

When making noodles by machine, a baffle is set at the place where the noodles are output after being cut into noodles, or a certain resistance is applied to the output of the noodles in other ways to make the noodles curl.

However, when making noodles by hand, the straight noodles are kneaded moderately to become curly noodles.

...

There is no doubt about it.

Erina is a genius, and a rare genius.

Some people spend their entire lives studying udon noodles, but they have only scratched the surface.

However, in such a short period of time, Erina Nakiri has pushed udon noodles to a whole new level. Obviously, her talent is still amazing! (End of this chapter)