After trying out hand-made pasta quite “successfully” last time, I felt like I am ready for next challenge (me being over-confident in food as always haha 😛 )! I originally looks into one of the biggest challenge among noodles – THE Hand-pull noodle 蘭州拉麵. Even after watching Tasty staff Andrew’s multi-failure video (enjoy it below!), I was still confident that I can hand-pull noodles because I CAN! I KNOW it just because I am Chinese? See, this is what I meant by “over-confident”..
Soon I came to realization that hand-pull noodles:
- use higher gluten flour such as bread flour, BUT neither do I have bread flour now nor could I buy any online at the peak of quarantine..
- use alkali ash (or Peng Hui 蓬灰) as the “secret ingredient” that makes noodle stretchy and elasticity during kneading.
- I did found information that baked baking soda at low temperature (250F for 1hour) could substitute alkali.
It was too late at the night (11PM) to bake baking soda for 1 hour and I accepted that I should start from mastering the easier hand-made noodle. HENCE, I followed YouTuber 小高姐的Magic Ingredients‘ handmade noodle recipe (she has 2 versions of handmade noodle, one a few years ago, and one in 2020 April, freshly released, as below).
In this post, I will share the handmade noodle part step by step following this video and to use this noodle make fresh spicy minced-pork noodle!
Quick Takeaways
- Use warm water to dissolve sale and baking soda but wait till it cool down before usage.
- Even dough is dry at first, no more water is needed. Just make it into a dough and rest 3 times (30mins, 30mins, 1hour)
- Spray cornstarch on rolled-out dough before folding and cutting, to prevent sticking together.
- Cut thinner/narrower as noodle expands in hot water.
- Rinse noodle in cold water to remain chewy.
- Noodle could be dry or soup-based, all your choice!
Recipe Breakdown
Her recipe is for 2-3 servings. I need to make noodle for 4 people and I doubled her recipe:
- water: 220g
- salt: 1/4 teaspoon
- baking soda: 1/4 teaspoon
- all purpose flour: 500g
Step 1: Use warm water to melt baking soda and salt. COOL DOWN before adding into flour.
Step 2: Add water to flour in 3 different time and stir the flour-water mixture till water mostly blend in flour, and flour looks like this:
Step 3:
- Start kneading flour, goal is to make it into a dough, even it’s very very dry and cracked. I found it helpful to scoop the last bit of flour that seems too dry to blend in on top of the dough and press down forcing them to knead in.
- This step might take 5-10 mins and the dough looked drier than video.
- Cover with wet cloth/(precious) paper towel.
- Rest at room temperature for 30 mins. (1st rising)
Step 4: After the 1st 30 mins rising, the dough looked smoother, but still rougher than video.
- Now the dough is much softer, just knead for 3-5 mins to make it even smoother. It did feel like dough was not blending well when pressed, not in a freely-shaped form.
- Cover with wet cloth/paper towel.
- Rest at room temperature for 30 mins. (2nd rising)
Step 5: After the 2nd 30 mins rising, the dough was softer and easy to manipulate. It was amazing to see how such a dry dough became so soft after water got absorb by flour and rested.
- This kneading could take less than 1 mins, just to make the dough smooth all over because it will go straight to spreading and noodle cutting after 3rd 1 hour rising.
- Cover with wet cloth/paper towel.
- Rest at room temperature for 1 hour. (2nd rising)
Step 6: roll out the dough and cut noodles!
- Spray a layer of cornstarch on the board to make it smooth for rolling.
- I suggested dividing dough into 4 parts (or how many servings you want) BEFORE rolling out the dough. I did not do that and just started rolling. But my roller was short and not for noodle, I had to cut the “pancake-like” dough into 4 parts, resulting in weird shape instead of perfect circle/rectangle.
- When roll till 2-3 mm thickness, it is ready to cut. If too thin, might not be as chewy as my pasta last time.
- Spray a layer cornstarch on the rolled-out dough BEFORE folding them for cut, this is the prevent noodle from sticking to each other after cutting.
- Cutting will apply pressure on noodle and they might be kneaded together, won’t separate easily even in water (my lesson!)
- Alternatively, mix/mess the noodle and do not let them sit as folded as the lower left two noodle bundles.
- Cutting: cut thinner if possible. I cut mine 4-5 mm wide, but the noodle expanded once heated, so it’s better to cut it thinner!
Step 7: Cook them in boiling water!
- Add some salt in water first to prevent noodles sticking together.
- Video advised to cook noodle for 1 min when boiled. But mine took longer to cook through, maybe cooking time is related to thickness?
- I rinsed noodle in cold water after to make it stop cooking from leftover heat and stay chewy.
The last magic ingredients for spicy minced-pork noodle!
The last few ingredients we will prepare are: mince-pork sauce, chili oil, green onion, noodle soup base. Neither of these ingredients should be too much as we want to balance:
- the taste of various ingredients
- raw and cooked texture: chopped green onion VS cooked meat & noodle
- hot and cold temperature: hot soup VS cold noodle
- light and spicy: soup VS chili oil
Mince-pork/beef/chicken sauce:
- Stir fry minced meat in pan. At first, water will come out of meat, so stir fry till water evaporate and meat becomes more dry (do not leave or burn the pan~)
- Add:
- normal soy sauce (生抽) – for the salty flavor
- dark soy sauce (老抽) – for the brown color
- (optional) a few small slices of ginger – bringing out more flavors and cover some meat taste
- white pepper powder – less spice than black pepper and usually used for lighter-taste dishes
- a small spoon of paste of your choice such as black bean taste 豆瓣醬, chili paste 辣椒醬, sweet bean paste 甜麵醬
- Pour in enough hot water that is half the “height” of minced-meat
- Cover the lid and turn to medium low heat, simmer for 5-6 mins.
- Minced-pork sauce should be done when you see 70-80% hot water is absorbed and the sauce is still moist.
FUN PART!! Combine all the ingredients in your pretty noodle bowl for insta/FB post:
- Pour a tablespoon of normal soy sauce in the bowl first
- Put in the noodle after rinsing in cold water and drying without mixing with soy sauce
- Add the 1/2 to 1 tablespoon green onions
- Add 1 to 2 tablespoon of minced-pork sauce
- Add 1 table spoon of the “sediment” goodie of your chili oil!!! (recipe next time!)
- Photo time!! (not done yet haha! unless you want dry noodle, than just add a spoon of the chili oil’s actual oil, some sesame oil and stir to serve)
- Add 2 big ladle of chicken soup or meat soup, or you can use supermarket-bought chicken broth.
- In case of not enough chicken soup (which was my case), you can use 1 ladle of noodle soup to make it up.
- Adding soup next to avoid swollen noodles
- Add 1 to 2 tablespoon of actual chili oil (personal preference on how much to add after taste it 🙂 )
- Add 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of sesame to add flavor!
- Ta-da~~~ it is done now!!
Ready to serve! Mix now and Enjoy!
