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Decoding Japanese labels: Know what type of flour to use

By on June 1, 2020

Bread is an important part of our meals but have you ever wondered where wheat in Japan comes from? You will be surprised that only 12% of local consumption is produced in Japan.

The rest, according to Nisshin Flour Mills, is imported: 50% from the United States, 30% from Canada and 20% from Australia.

There are so many varieties of flour in the supermarket but even if your Japanese reading skills are great, pictures can be seriously confusing. Sometimes you can end up buying a type of flour that doesn’t match your recipe and you can ruin the outcome of what you are trying to cook. On your next trip to a Japanese supermarket, it helps to understand that flour is made up of carbohydrates and proteins which give your baked goods some structure, and in the case of whole-wheat flour, some fat. Of these three nutrients, protein matters most when you’re baking bread. The gluten-forming proteins, and the quantity and quality of these proteins determines how a flour would suit your recipe.

 

Hard/Soft wheat mix
If your recipe calls for an all-purpose flour, then this type is what you need. It has a high protein and gluten content with a mildly sweet flavor. This means it’s ideal for baking yeast bread with an airy chewy texture, tortilla, cereal or gyoza (Japanese dumplings) wrappers. The harder the wheat, the more kneading it needs to create the structure.

 

Soft wheat  Not all wheats are hard. This finely milled flour type is made from soft wheat with very low protein content and less gluten strength. Because it is low in moisture, baked goods like cookies, puff pastry, cakes, crackers, pie crust, tempura, come out with a lighter flakier texture. This is also the type of flour commonly used by the Japanese to make udon noodles.

 

Light
The label is so ubiquitous in Japan, you can almost always find one at convenience stores. It is so common, Japanese families always have this in their pantries. Although it is the kind you would not want to use for breads because of its lower protein content than the all-purpose flour, it is often referred to as a pastry flour.  It has a leavening added to it which makes it suitable for making tempura, tonkatsu or even okonomiyaki batter. It’s ideal for making light summer udon noodles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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