100% buck wheat soba 十割蕎麦

As a part of the Sushi Taro Osechi box, we also got Chef Kitayama's 100% buckwheat flour soba noodles or "Juwari soba" 十割蕎麦 ("Juwari" in Japanese means 100%). This year, a concentrated sauce was also provided. As I mentioned before, making soba from 100% buckwheat flour is very difficult (20% regular wheat and 80% buckwheat flour is most common). Using 100% buckwheat represents Chef Kitayama's prowess and passion for soba making. As before we could not eat it as "Toshi koshi soba" 年越しそば or "Welcoming-New-Year soba", so we had this as a lunch on January 2, hoping it would bring us the same good luck as having the soba on New Year's eve.

Since it was rather cold outsdie, we decided to have it warm.

It does not show well but I added mitsu-ba ミツバ as garnish.

The picture below was before pouring in the soup. I diluted the accompanied sauce with my dashi broth (from kelp and bonito flakes I made few days ago).

As a topping, I used red and white fish cake 紅白蒲鉾 in a decorative cut. I also added New Year's omelet roll or Datemaki 伊達巻 that I made. I garnished it with chopped scallion and mitsuba.

The 100% buckwheat flour noodles had a unique texture unlike standard soba noodles. It was nicely firm, slightly brittle with a lovely fresh soba smell. We also detected a slight nutty flavor. We really enjoyed this distinctive artisan soba very much.