What Are Alkaline Noodles?

Due to their brightness and yellow color tone, yellow alkaline noodles are extremely important. In general, South East Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, etc.) is where yellow alkaline noodles are most frequently eaten. ) and Japan. They are typically parboiled and made with wheat flour, water, salt, and alkaline salt. The alkaline salt gives the noodles their yellow color, firm texture, alkaline flavor, and high pH. There are numerous varieties of alkaline noodles, but the three that are most consumed are fresh, dried, wet/boiled, and noodles with eggs. There are many forms of alkaline noodles. They differ primarily in the manufacturing process, particularly in the last stages or steps. Popular in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, wet yellow alkaline (Hokkien) noodles can be found in Asian markets. Hokkien noodles generally have a moisture content of 50–60 %. These types of noodles have a notable feature that lowers their shelf life to one to one and higher moisture contents. 5 days. But with the right processing and packaging, the noodles’ shelf life can be extended by up to 3–4 days.

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Karim, R. , Sultan, M. (2015). Yellow Alkaline Noodles: An Introduction. In: Yellow Alkaline Noodles. SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition. Springer, Cham. https://doi. org/10. 1007/978-3-319-12865-8_3.

Serving ideas ▲ Sichuan street food Dan Dan noodles

There are many delicious ways to serve alkaline noodles. Try the following:

Alkaline noodles and ramen have the advantage of maintaining their shape for a considerable amount of time when compared to other fresh noodle types. In other words, the noodle strands won’t adhere to one another and create a sticky mess.

Making them in bulk for later use is therefore a great idea. My recipe makes 4-6 servings (depending on your appetite). You can simply increase the quantity of the ingredients proportionally.

Divide uncooked noodles in portions then seal in bags/containers. They can be kept frozen for three months or in the refrigerator for up to five days.

Cook the noodles following the same instructions explained above. If frozen, they can be boiled straight away without defrosting.

You can make chewy, springy, alkaline noodles or ramen noodles at home by baking baking soda.

These ramen-style noodles are also known as alkaline noodles because the key is in the “baked” baking soda.

Resting the dough helps the glutens relax, improving the texture and making rolling much simpler because the dough is much less sticky.

Up until the material is between 2 and 3 millimeters thick, keep feeding it through the roller and adjusting it each time to the next-thinnest setting. Most pasta rollers have a setting between 5 and 6 for this.

After combining, leave the dough to rest at room temperature for an hour while being wrapped in plastic.

Key Ingredients for Making Ramen at Home

Alkaline salt is the most difficult ingredient to locate in ramen’s incredibly short ingredient list, which also includes water, flour, and other ingredients. It’s very likely that you will be able to find a kansui solution with a combination of the two alkaline salts on its shelves, sold under the Koon Chun brand, if you have access to a large Chinese or Asian supermarket. However, in order to make this recipe accessible to as many home cooks as possible, we opted to substitute a slightly more accessible ingredient for the premixed kansui solution.

Harold McGee wrote in the New York Times almost ten years ago about how baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, can be converted to sodium carbonate by simply baking it in a moderately hot oven. We chose to use baked baking soda as the alkaline salt in our recipe because it is readily available and the baking process is fairly simple.

I tried the method McGee recommends in that article, but I thought it fell a little short. I put about two pounds (920g) of baking soda onto a sheet pan, spread it out in an even layer, and measured the weight every 30 minutes while the oven was preheated to 250°F. According to McGee, baking soda will be sufficiently baked in an hour and should weigh about a third less than it did when it was first added. In my case, this meant that the desired end weight was about 613g. The baking soda in the pan weighed 899g after an hour and 881g after an hour and a half. When I increased the oven temperature to 350°F, the weight decreased to 791g after an hour and to 657g after two hours.

The loss of water and carbon dioxide that occurs as heat causes sodium bicarbonate to change into sodium carbonate is what you are monitoring here. Since McGee didn’t specify how much baking soda to use or what size pan to bake it in, his estimated timing is problematic because the speed of the process depends on the surface area of the material involved. I’ve created a clearer procedure that specifically instructs you to weigh the sodium bicarbonate at the beginning and compare it to the sodium carbonate at the conclusion to make sure the final weight is two-thirds of the starting weight. This allows you to use it for any convenient amount of baking soda, whether it be a half pound or ten; the only difference will be the amount of time required, which should typically be between one and three hours.

Transfer your cooled baking soda to an airtight container after it has cooled. Avoid touching it with your exposed skin because it is a caustic substance and irritant as a result.