Making My Own Noodles

Following the instructions on this Youtube video by Inga Lam on hand-pulled noodles, I tried it for myself.  Here’s what I did.

Dough after it has been rolled out and cut into strips.

After allowing the dough to rest, hand pull each strip as much as you can.

• 3 cups of flour (any type of flour is fine)
• 1 cup of tap water
• 1 tsp salt
• canola oil

The above quantity serves two.

1. In a large bowl, add the flour and salt. Then make a well.
2. Pour water into the well.
3. Use a fork to combine the water and flour to form a dough.
4. Put the dough onto a clean counter dusted with a little bit of flour.
5. Knead this dough until it is smooth. This will take about ten to fifteen minutes. If the dough resists your kneading let it rest for about ten minutes (cover with a damp towel while resting) and then resume kneading until the dough is smooth.
6. Once smooth, rub oil around the dough.
7. Lightly oil a rolling pin and roll out the dough into a circular shape so that it is about half an inch thick.
8. Cut into strips (about 8 inches long and 1 inch wide) and place on a well-oiled plate.
9. Lightly oil these strips and cover plate with plastic wrap. Let it rest at room temperature between 2 to 2.5 hours.
10. After allowing the dough to rest, hand pull each strip as much as you can. This will turn into your noodle. As you pull, gently whip the noodle onto the counter as you are stretching. This helps with the stretching process. If the noodle becomes too long as you stretch, fold in half and continue stretching.  There are Youtube videos on how to do this. The Youtube video noted above shows this step very clearly.
11. To cook the noodles, place in boiling water. It will only take about 3 to 5 minutes to cook the noodles.
12. Serve noodles with your desired sauce.

Hand pulled noodles served with a quick sauce of chicken, green peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, ground sichuan peppers and potatoes.