Seeing the discussions about lye water, I thought I can make some clarifications. Lye water is an authentic ingredient in traditional noodle making. Chinese noodles put a lot of emphasis on how “tough” the noodles were and the more “tough” or elastic the noodle is, the better is the noodle considered to be.

Lye water is used for helping gluten development in the noodle making process. Thus, the more lye water you add, the tougher you will have to knead the dough. The action the lye water does is increasing the pH so that more gluten can form. Such is done to increase the “toughness” of the noodles, which is “desirable” depending to your taste. Chinese chefs often say “Alkaline is the bone of the noodle, while salt is the tendons” – the two gives the noodle its unique texture and their respective amounts has a great impact on the texture of the noodles produced.

(@Janet it is definitely the wrong way to put the dough in alkaline, baking soda definitely can be a substitute. What traditional Chinese uses is some kind of ash from the remnants of burning certain herbs -> add water = alkaline solution/kansui/lye water)

Most Chinese recipes also use high-gluten flour in noodle making for the same reason (Usually, it’s about half high gluten flour and half all purpose flour). Typically, the flour mixture used for Chinese noodles has a protein content of approximately 10.5-12%.

You are right about kansui: It is not some secret ingredient that is essential for making pulled noodles. It does give the noodles a characteristic texture, flavor, and color, but my current goal is to produce even noodles. For that purpose, baking soda is an adequate substitute. The only secret here is — practice!

BTW, I tried an experiment with kansui and bread flour (this was before hearing that low-gluten flour was the way to go). I put a lump of dough into a dish of kansui. Thirty minutes later, the dough had absorbed all the kansui and was hard!–as hard and brittle as if it had dried out. Broke instead of stretching.

Janet

I’ve watched countless videos and have read just as many forums/blogs on noodle making; I stumbled upon your blog and have learned a great deal to get started. I’ve tried for three days now and I think I have the dough pliable enough to pull.

Problem. It seems my dough is TOO loose that I can’t pull fast enough before it really thins out. If I add more flour, I have to knead it more to the right consistency.

What success I have, however, is when I work water/oil into the dough as I’m kneading with the whipping (bang on table) technique. Beating it up really expedites the process, and I mean go to town with it, heh… q(^_^)p

What can I do to maintain that elasticity without the dough thinning TOO much when I pull?

I’ve yet to put any real time into making a solid soup recipe to go with these noodles, so I can’t make any recommendations. I’d love to figure out how to make a nice ramen-like soup, though. mmmm!

Thanks so much for the instruction video! I´m going out flour shopping…

Have you experimented with stocks and soups also? Would love to check.

Take care

Bjorn, Norway

I think you’re right about the FDA. People putting chemicals in their food is probably something they frown upon, but I need my noodles darnit!

P.S. I made a recent post here. I discovered a chinese video detailing a hand-pulled noodle dish, and the translation (which I have yet to post) is basically 500g flour, 10g salt, 5g baking soda, which is really close to what my recipe calls for. The best translation I’ve gotten for kneading so far is “After shaping, let sit 15
minutes before pulling.”

I think the kansui is an actual ingredient for the authentic item. There is a la mien wiki that references the alkaline water used to make the noodle in its native area. The liquid alkaline solution that is available is an ingredient for a peanut filled pancake and by the looks of it, gives interesting results for _that_ dish.

The kansui powder is another matter. I’ve tried at length to find it but to no avail. I believe that it just isn’t imported to this country. It probably would be a big risk to ship an entire freight container not knowing whether a market exists for the product; regardless of what the FDA/USDA would make of it prior to shipping.

I am going to try to get some university students to help me in my search—-I live near a substantial Chinese population.

I’ve never heard of headlight fluid. Is that like a left-handed screwdriver or snipe hunt; a trick to mess with the n00bs?

Regards,

Sean

Yup, I’ve made a double batch before. Unfortunately, the larger the dough ball, the more kneading it needs.

There are some tricks, though, and that’s why you see noodle makers in videos doing the whip-stretch technique instead of kneading it for 30 minutes. Not only does it look cool, but whipping and spiraling the dough give the gluten a really good workout.

Then again, it’s possible there are things you can put into the dough to relax the gluten more. I’ve heard of powdered gluten relaxers, but have yet to try them. It might be time for some more experiments…

By the way, I was searching around google.cn and found a video about hand pulled noodles. I posted about it here. I’m still working on getting it translated, but it might have some additional information in it.