Hand-pulled Noodles

Admittedly, this is a lot of work for noodles. But the bite, chew, and texture you get from homemade, hand-pulled noodles is vastly different from the dried stuff in grocery stores.

Stuff you’ll need

• flour (probably all-purpose)
• water
• salt

Preparation

Mix the flour, water, and salt together, and knead. I usually do this on a large cutting board. By the end of kneading, 3 things should be clean and glossy: the surface of the dough, the cutting board, and your hands. No more flour, or clammy, sticky dough should be left on any of those surfaces. Make sure the dough is the right texture, it should have a little give, but bounce back eventually. If it’s too hard or too soft, you’ll need to work in more water or flour. This is even more based on feelings than my other recipes because I might not get the flour and water ratio correct the first try.

Lightly oil the dough on the surface and cover it, to prevent the dough from drying. Let it rest for up to 5 hours. Resting allows the gluten network to form and get stronger in the dough, so that the dough won’t break when you start pulling it. At least, I think that’s how the science works, don’t trust me.

Now, depending how talented you are, the next steps will be either annoying or really fast.

Pull one bowl of noodles at a time

Honestly if you can do this, why are you even here? Split the dough into balls corresponding to each serving. Pull the dough, fold it, pull again, and repeat until the resulting noodles are the desired thickness. Then boil it.

I can’t do this, I’ve just seen people in restaurants do it. It’s pretty amazing, and super efficient.

Pull individual noodles separately

Roll out the dough to rectangular-ish shape, with a thickness slightly thicker than the desired end result. Cut the dough into logs of even thickness, and pull it to about 2 or 3 times the original length. Continue with the rest of the dough. Make sure each individual log doesn’t dry out by keeping it covered, or by working with only parts of the dough at a time.

Finally, pull each individual log until it reaches the desired thickness, or before it snaps. Boil all these noodles!

Final notes

• I purposely didn’t include any sauces or soups because this is meant to be a general preparation. Feel free to use these noodles with any sauce or soup that you like!
• It’s important to keep the dough from drying out throughout the process. Dry dough becomes more brittle and easier to snap when pulling.
• When pulling the individual noodles separately, you’ll likely need a few work stations just to keep things moving along. Since it’s not as efficient, pull noodles until you have 1-2 servings. Then boil those noodles, and pull the next batch of noodles. Drain the boiled noodles, toss lightly in oil so that they don’t stick together, or serve immediately.
• I believe two things are preventing me from being able to pull a bowl of noodles at once: 1) lack of technique, and 2) perhaps something in the dough making process (missing ingredient? more rest?) that makes the dough more resilient to breaking. If you have tips for either of these things, please let me know!