拉面 Hand-pulled Noodles Recipe

[xiaocai]

Alright, I see. So I think here 碱 could be sodium carbonate, which is also called 苏打 or 纯碱 in Chinese. Sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate works in pretty much the same mechanism but somehow the noodles made with the latter one will be much more stretchable and 筋道 when boiled. So I think that is why the authentic 兰州拉面馆 insist on using 蓬灰 instead of 碱 even the latter one is much more commonly used in other noodles.

[taylor04]

This is an American chef who has learned how to do it, shows you how to do it but hes obviously not as good as the Chinese ones. The recipe he uses is 300g cake flour, 50g all purpose flour, 200g water, 15g sesame oil, 6g salt, 3g baking soda.

I'm not sure if its his dough or its his technique, but he keeps making the noodles uneven, but at least this is a recipe thats proven without having to find some weird stuff

[taylor04]

and with practice, maybe you can make as many as this guy!

[imron]

No self-respecting Chinese noodle chef would use a mixer.

[taylor04]

I tried making it last night, it was a complete failure. The dough was too sticky so I added some flour... too much flour. I'm going to try again today sometime.

[imron]

Do you have potassium carbonate?

[taylor04]

No, I'm trying the one American chefs recipe, he lists his ingredients and demonstrates making the noodles so it should work...

[taylor04]

I tried again with that recipe, realized my mistake. I accidently wrote down 300g of water instead of 200g. The pulling process is really hard and I kept breaking the noodles. I found that I could make really small batches and pull them pretty well. I would first make a really thin long log, 2-3 feet and pull that with some good success.

[caposcott]

Hi everyone, im a newbee to this forum and so glad i found it, there is allot of useful info on here.

Could somebody please translate only the noodle recipe from this video please. i just need the ingredients he use's to make it. Don't need the rest of the recipe.

I still a beginner to mandarin so don't understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4zL9U2NyE

Thanks allot!!

Scott

[taylor04]

We had a post about making pulled noodles awhile ago, its not as easy as it looks, but theres a whole thread dedicated to it here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/15052-%e6%8b%89%e9%9d%a2-la-mian-hand-pulled-noodles-dough-recipe&page=2

[caposcott]

I know about that post, i read it a while ago and i make hand pulled noodles allot. I have a good recipe but in the video the chef adds a white powder to the flour other than salt and i just want to know what it is. I already make noodles with 速溶蓬灰 .. but i add it in liquid form when the dough is already made. He adds a powder to the dry ingredients Just curious if its the same..

[taylor04]

Yea, that was talked about in the other thread, the other powder he adds is 碱 jian3. I posted the same video over there, and we discussed about the 碱 and 速溶蓬灰. I even made some noodles without either of them, but it didn't have a very good stretching consistency.

imron

In the video they talk about adding 碱 which I guess serves the same function as the 速溶蓬灰. A quick search reveals that in English, this is alum, which although used as a food additive apparently may not be that good for you.

[imron]

Merged.

[rnakashima]

I've been reading a bunch of blogs also trying to figure out how much of the liquid kansui to use (this one: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/lilyng2000/amay019.jpg) in a ramen noodle recipe. But I'm not sure I've heard a clear answer.

Can any one help?

Also, according to these posts, cake flour has less gluten than the other flours and is probably less sticky ... which probably explains why the dough keeps breaking when you pull it: http://www.rameniac.com/forum/viewthread/319/#388

Anyway, I hope I helped someone ... now can someone help me?