Chinese Pulled Noodle Demonstration

Hi,

I was in Washington, DC this last week. At Chinatown Express, they promise quite a show:



I was early, so I had to wait for them to finish setting up the steam table for lunch. Once completed, then they demonstrated how to make pulled noodles. A video clip of this can be found here.

Unfortunately my demonstrator was not as obviously bored as Nr706 experienced in China last year.



Chinatown Express
746 6th St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 638-0424

Regards,

Hi Cathy 2,

Thanks for the pictures. I can understand the boredom noodle makers must experience. As an observer, however, I never tire of watching this miraculous creation from a lump of dough!

Jyoti

Hi,

It's really quite a feat to take a lump of dough and transform it in 1 minute 19 seconds into strings of noodles. It is certainly faster than my pasta roller.

Regards,

Hi -

I saw a demonstration like this over 20 years ago at a chinese restaurant in La Jolla, California. Still amazing to watch.

Thanks for sharing.

has anyone ever tried actually making hand pulled noodles, i'm sure the technique is quite hard but i'm wondering what goes into the dough.

Cathy2 wrote:Once completed, then they demonstrated how to make pulled noodles. A video clip of this can be found here.

Cathy,

I had not realized you took the video and uploaded it to youtube. Interesting demo and very cool use of technology. Bill/SFNM leads, we follow.

Enjoy,
Gary

Can any of the tech geeks here explain to me why I can get only the first 6 - 7 seconds of anything on YouTube? If someone explains how to fix it, I will upload more photos of the bored Chinese guy making noodles.

Hi,

Recently someone posted on my youtube Chinese pulling noodles clip with a bit of know-how:

consisting of pastry flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda and water. Pastry flour has 10-11.5% protein whereas all-purpose flour has 11-13% protein. A mixture of these two flours is lower in protein (gluten) than all-purpose flour and will make a dough that is easier to stretch. In addition, the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3) increases the alkalinity of the dough. The alkalinity weakens the flour proteins, improves moisture retention by hydrating the starches noodles.

I'm considering giving this a shot sometime. If anyone has tried stretching noodles, then I would love to here your experience, technique tips and recipe.

Regards,

I have always found this demonstration to be amazing, ever since I first saw it at Yu's Mandarin 22+ years ago (wow, if that doesn't make me feel old).

Does anyone know if Yu's still does this?

Jamie

Yu's Mandarin
200 East Golf Road
Schaumburg, IL 60173

HI,

I have heard they still do on weekends only.

Regards,

HI,

Chicago Tribune has a noodle pulling video at Hing Kee: http://www.chicagotribune.com/videobeta ... c5d0c5b49d
(You do have to put with a sponsor commerical in advance)

This a video I made several years ago in Washington, DC:

i like how the trib video also shows the knife cut noodles in the beginning (diao xiao). also noticed the noodles are hand pulled but not cut at the ends, so it just cooks as a giant single noodle?

America's Test Kitchen's hand pulled noodles
Hi,

I have just prepped the dough and will give this a shot in a few days. The demo is a modified technique, but with some practice one could pull off the bored guy in the window making oodles of noodles.

What I am not too keen about is the sauce. Quite often I will make the full recipe as-is just to see how it pulls together. Not this time with that sauce, does anyone have a suggestion for a sauce for this?

Thanks!

Regards,
Cathy2

Imperial Lamian serves pulled noodles. While it’s not exactly a “demonstration,” the kitchen is open so you can see them pull and form the noodles. They also have XO sauce, so I guess I will wander over to that thread and report there as well.

Imperial Lamian
6 West Hubbard
Chicago 60654

HI,

King Arthur now offers their take on what appears to be Chinese Hand Pulled Noodles.

Biang Biang Noodles

All that is missing is a video, but that is just the moment to visit YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux9i_eOWK3g



More videos can be found here. If you find one that is especially good, please link.

Regards,
Cathy2

What fun. I haven't made noodles, but I don't think you're allowed to tour China and not see them being made. When I was in Shaanxi, we stopped in a town where they said their motto was one plate/one noodle -- they make the noodles so long that one noodle actually fills your plate. Of course, they were cooking in large pots. But to make the noodles longer, you just fold them, with your fingers separating the strands, and keep "banging." But I look forward to finding out how your project turns out, Cathy. I imagine your noodles will be as beautiful as your khachapuri.