- Make a smooth, fairly firm dough using flour, salt & water.
- Divide then flatten the dough. Coat with oil then leave to rest.
- Bring a pot of water to boil. Cut the dough pieces into strips.
- Pull the strips into long noodles one at a time. Drop into the water.
- Cook for 1-2 minutes then dish out.
It may seem intimidating at first to make Chinese Hand-pull Noodles at home, but trust me, after a few tries, you will become an expert!
Plus, did I mention that making these noodles at home is SO much fun? If you are concerned, I would suggest letting it rest in oil for an additional hour.
The dough gets softer and easier to stretch the longer these rest in the oil.
Even better, prepare these the day before up to step 3 and store them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat them the following day.
There are so many ways to enjoy Chinese Hand-pulled noodles.
My 10 Minutes Spicy Garlic Noodles and Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup are two of my personal favorites.
The chewy noodle absorbs all the flavor and instantly makes your dish better. You can hit the noodles against the countertop until they reach the desired thickness if you like your noodles thick or thin.
Trial 2: Really, Really Aggressive Kneading
The second technique I discovered involved lengthy dough kneading in a stand mixer. The theory behind this was that vigorous, prolonged kneading broke down the gluten network sufficiently to create a plastic dough with a high extensibility and low elasticity. (The initial mixing and kneading develops gluten to a certain extent, resulting in a distinctly elastic but un-stretchy dough. However, overly vigorous kneading after that point might actually weaken the gluten network. A dough with repeatable extensibility could be created by mechanically breaking enough of those strong disulfide bonds over time and with enough force. And a stand mixer could complete this more quickly and effectively than laboriously stretching and kneading by hand.
Anecdotally, this logic made sense to me. I recalled seeing a massive Hobart mixer whirring away and kneading dough throughout my entire meal at that Montreal noodle shop. Even noodle chefs who were interviewed admitted using large bread mixers to handle the demands of a big operation. In the most extreme case, I discovered a recipe that instructed mixing dough in a stand mixer for nearly two hours.
And you know what? This method definitely worked. I discovered that this “over-kneaded” dough had the consistency of silly putty after two hours of kneading in a KitchenAid. There was very little elasticity. After a brief period of twirling and stretching, I was able to pull some respectable noodles.
But I still wasn’t satisfied. After all, I couldn’t justify taking a costly stand mixer’s motor at risk of failure just to make some noodles. I didn’t want to hand out $300 paperweights to hordes of would-be noodle pullers. Plus, two hours is a criminally long amount of time. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Fortunately, there exist recipes with more moderate kneading times. The most popular of these comes from Luke Rymarz himself. The key component is a 12-minute stand-mixer kneading session, followed by another 15 minutes of hand stretching and twirling. “I was doing it all by hand initially,” he says. But one day, following the publication of his recipe online, he received an invitation to present his method at a nearby cooking school. The instructor prepared his dough in a huge industrial mixer. “When he gave me that dough, I went, ‘Holy cow. This is amazing. This is the best dough. It was warm, had a nice texture, and reminded me of clay. Very pliable. ”.
The closest I had gotten to pulling noodles successfully and consistently in a reasonable amount of time up to that point was using Luke’s recipe. The finished dough was extensible, pliable, and relatively simple to pull into thin noodles. But despite spending all that time kneading in a stand mixer, the technique still had some drawbacks: the cooked noodles lacked the chew and structure I was looking for; the recipe called for very specific brands of flour; and the technique required extensive stretching and twirling for success. The recipe took too long to prepare and had too many variables. It was inconsistent. I most wanted a simpler approach that didn’t rely on machinery as much. Luke cautions, “I’ve probably fixed my stand mixer four or five times.” “So it’s not a great option for the home cook. ”.
FAQ
How do you make hand noodles?
Knead dough until smooth. Dough should be stretched without tearing as you roll, knead, and stretch it for three to five minutes. Stretch the dough out to a length of about an arm’s length, then gather the ends to form an even, twisted log (roll the log on the counter after twisting to even out thicker areas).
How do you knead hand pulled noodles?
Pull the Noodles: To make wide noodles, cut into 1. 5 to 2-inch thick strips. To make thin noodles, cut into ½-inch thick strips. Slowly pull the noodles in opposite directions while holding the ends of each strip in each hand. Make sure to pull it slowly to avoid snapping.
Can you hand pull egg noodles?
Depending on size, dried noodles should be cooked in boiling water for 3 to 6 minutes. If adding to a soup, slightly undercook the noodles. Fresh noodles – Cook for 1 to 3 minutes. Fresh noodles can be added to soups without needing to be cooked first.
