Udon noodles are a particular favourite in our family. They are thick noodles made from wheat and, while you can buy them in the supermarket, they are much nicer when you’ve made them yourself.

The noodles need three and a half hours resting time so don’t start making them 30 minutes before supper. Make them earlier in the day and then heat them up at supper time.

Ingredients (for 4 people)

400g of plain flour
180g water
10g table salt

This may appear to be a lot of salt but it is the salt water that gives these noodles their slightly chewy texture; so don’t skimp on the salt. If you are worried about salt intake, reduce the amount of salt you use in whatever sauce you are going to make to go with the noodles (cut back on that soy sauce).

Start by weighing out your flour (I use plain flour and usually the basic supermarket version – no need for extra strong flour) and the water.

Mix the 10g of salt into the water – make sure it has all dissolved and then pour the salt water into the flour.

mix these together to form a dough. At this point, you are likely to return to these instructions thinking you have misread the weight of water… no, it is 180g… You may now be thinking “it must be a typo, it needs more water”; it doesn’t… just keep working the flour (you may need to tip it all out onto a surface) and eventually you will get a stiff but smooth dough.

Cover with a loose lid and leave for at least 30 minutes – just leave it alone; the proteins are doing what proteins do and you need to give them long enough to do it before you start messing them up again.

After 30 minutes (or so) the dough will be much more pliable and feel very different (it is at this point you think “I’m glad I didn’t add more water”). Place the dough on a work surface and, using the heel of your hand (I’m told that in Japan they use the heel of their feet) press the dough out, turning it over occasionally, into a rough square. You shouldn’t need any flour as the dough is not sticky (unless you added extra water earlier) – just press it out.

Once you have it pancake-like, you should fold it into thirds, like folding a letter.

And, then again into thirds across; like this…

And, now you have the perfect shape to press it out again… make another large square – turning the dough over several times as you press it out.

You ned to do this at least three times and, if your hands aren’t too tired, maybe a few more times.

On your last pressing out, make the dough the shape of a container – I use a plastic box with a lid to secure the dough while it’s left to ‘mature’.

Cover the dough and leave it at room temperature for three hours.

Three hours later…

Take the dough out of the container and, using a rolling pin, roll out the dough. “How thick?” – well, that depends on how thick you like your noodles.

Dust the surfaces with a little flour and gently fold the dough into a letter fold:

and slice off the noodles.

As you cut them, open them out and dust them with flour to stop them sticking.

Once they are all cut, cook them in a large pan of boiling water for about 12 minutes. Give them a stir when they go into the water and then occasionally during the cooking time. When they are cooked, lift them out and place them in a bowl of cold water (you will need to refresh the cold water to keep it cold); rinse off any excess starch.

The noodles are now ready (once drained) to use in your favourite udon noodle dish. We like to add them to stir-fried vegetables …

yum