# F**k hand pulled noodles



## ian (Mar 1, 2021)

Tried to make this recipe today









Hand-Pulled Lamian Noodles Recipe


Hand-pulled noodles are notoriously difficult to make, let alone master. But with the help of science (and some nutritional yeast), they're easy to make at home.




www.seriouseats.com





My dough was just not extensible enough. Even after 15-20 min of the initial kneading, it broke instead of stretched when I went to make the noodles. Couldn’t get them nearly thin enough and the dough didn’t behave like in his video early on either. Definitely more extensible than a dough without nutritional yeast, but not good enough.

Thoughts? @Xenif, you’ve made these, right?


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## M1k3 (Mar 1, 2021)

ian said:


> Tried to make this recipe today
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Me thinks a video example will help diagnose the issue.


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## esoo (Mar 1, 2021)

M1k3 said:


> Me thinks a video example will help diagnose the issue.



Which YouTube thread are you trying to set him up for?


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## ian (Mar 1, 2021)

M1k3 said:


> Me thinks a video example will help diagnose the issue.



That’s like asking me to post nude photos on the internet. I’m hoping people can chime in with “That amount of nutritional yeast didn’t work for me too! You need more, or you need to knead forever, or you need to import this other dough relaxer illegally from china!”


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## ian (Mar 1, 2021)

*





Sad, lonely miso broth. So hard hearted to leave it unaccompanied. *


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## refcast (Mar 1, 2021)

That shark avatar and sub title is hilarious.


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## M1k3 (Mar 1, 2021)

esoo said:


> Which YouTube thread are you trying to set him up for?


The awesome one of course! Maybe the shilling one also?


ian said:


> That’s like asking me to post nude photos on the internet. I’m hoping people can chime in with “That amount of nutritional yeast didn’t work for me too! You need more, or you need to knead forever, or you need to import this other dough relaxer illegally from china!”


Alkalinity level? I've never done them before but I remember that being an important part of the stretch.


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## Rangen (Mar 1, 2021)

I have never made hand-pulled noodles, but I know exactly which cookbook I would trust to tell me how: Florence Lin's Complete Book of Noodles, Dumplings, and Breads. My copy is falling apart really badly, but I have not bought another, because it seems to have become really expensive, and because it is autographed to me. She is gone now, I believe, but she was a classy delight when alive. She was happy to autograph it, despite its condition, correctly understanding why it was falling apart: it got a lot of use.

Her recipe calls for no lye, no yeast, just 1 cup flour: 1/4 tsp Kosher salt, and 1/2 cup cold water minus 2Tbsp that you hold back to see if you need it. The rest is process. 

The first thing I think of when I hear of a dough breaking under stress is: it should rest more. And indeed her process calls for mixing the dough, and then letting it rest for 2-8 hours at room temperature. Then you stretch. If it breaks, you just pick up that piece and work with it that way.


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## daveb (Mar 1, 2021)

ian said:


> extensible



TIL. Gotta use that.


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## ian (Mar 1, 2021)

M1k3 said:


> Alkalinity level? I've never done them before but I remember that being an important part of the stretch.



Interesting! A bit of google searching does indicate that some recipes use something alkaline. Maybe I'll try next time with the sodium/potassium carbonate mix I use for ramen. Some of these recipes also say not to use bread flour, while the serious eats ones calls for that.



Rangen said:


> Her recipe calls for no lye, no yeast, just 1 cup flour: 1/4 tsp Kosher salt, and 1/2 cup cold water minus 2Tbsp that you hold back to see if you need it. The rest is process.
> 
> The first thing I think of when I hear of a dough breaking under stress is: it should rest more. And indeed her process calls for mixing the dough, and then letting it rest for 2-8 hours at room temperature. Then you stretch. If it breaks, you just pick up that piece and work with it that way.



Hmmm..... I'm skeptical of this. I bet a rest would have helped a bit, but this dough was already a ton more stretchy than the usual ramen dough I make, which often does rest for a while before. It just wasn't stretchy enough for this process, where you have to stretch the dough by a factor of 2 multiple times in quick succession. Will definitely try next time with a long initial rest though.


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## Rangen (Mar 1, 2021)

When I make pizza dough, which must stretch without breaking into a very thin net supported by gluten, I follow the advice of that guy who blew up the internet with his instructions (he later published a book, which I bought, of course). It was brilliant technique. You add the water and maybe 1/3 of the flour to a Kitchen Aid mixer armed with the dough hook, and you let the hook trail around in the batter, for it is only a batter at this point, until you can literally see the strands of gluten stretching around the hook. Add the rest of the flour, and you've got yourself a proper pizza dough, after an overnight rest, because it's way too tense to handle right out of the bowl.

It seems similar. Initial kneading for just the right amount of gluten-strand-based toughness, then a long rest for maximum malleability.


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## Xenif (Mar 2, 2021)

ian said:


> Tried to make this recipe today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not hand pulled, but now that you mentioned it why haven't I? I usually do udon, ramen, soba even but havent done this traditional chinese laimien


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## esoo (Mar 2, 2021)

ian said:


> Tried to make this recipe today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Now that I actually read the recipe, you were using bread or other high gluten flour?


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## MarcelNL (Mar 2, 2021)

for making pizza I find there are huge differences especially in flexibility of the final dough based on what flour I'm using, my favorite is Cuoca by Caputo, but Manitoba ( I usually mix like 10-15% of it into the Cuoca flour) should be even better (and probably readily available in the US). Hitting the right hydration is essential for flex too and every type of flour needs a specific amount of water to get that right!

I never made hand stretched noodles though...


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

esoo said:


> Now that I actually read the recipe, you were using bread or other high gluten flour?



yes


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## esoo (Mar 2, 2021)

Then I'm out - only useful thing I could add to the thread.


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## Carl Kotte (Mar 2, 2021)

Did you use your hands?


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

Carl Kotte said:


> Did you use your hands?



Are you pulling my leg?


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## Kippington (Mar 2, 2021)

Was the dough too dry or too cold? The Boston weather could be holding you back a bit...
It's a good idea to form a dough with the water and flour before adding oil. The oil can act as a barrier to water, blocking the gluten from hydration.


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

Dry maybe. Doubt it was too cold, since I was kneading it so much, but who knows. Never done it before. I'll check its temp next time. Good point with the oil.

Maybe next time I'll try a maximalist approach, making the dough (omitting the oil) many hours ahead, adding some sodium/potassium carbonate, and only incorporating the oil when I really knead it.


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## DavidPF (Mar 2, 2021)

Even very ordinary Italian pasta needs rest time, let alone something planned to be super stretchy. I've assumed it's because the flour particles need time to absorb the water, rather than anything to do with gluten, but I can't prove that. When you don't rest it, the dough cracks instead of rolling out smoothly. Half an hour.


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

Fwiw, it was probably about 1.5 hrs from the time I made the dough till the time I was trying to do the final pulling. Will try again with the more extreme resting times suggested above, though.


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## DavidPF (Mar 2, 2021)

IMO if the flour and water were together for anything over a half hour, then resting per se shouldn't be the issue. (But temperature or other resting-related things are not impossible)

Maybe gluten related resting takes longer than hydration resting does, though.


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

Yea it’s not about the dough getting hydrated. If you’ve ever let normal pasta dough sit in the fridge for a few hours, you’ll know that it changes a lot during that time, though. Leftover pasta dough that’s in the fridge overnight changes even more. It is easier to work with and more uniform in some sense. I don’t do that usually for pasta because it’s not worth the forethought — pasta works fine without the long rest too. But yea, maybe that’ll make a difference here.


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## panda (Mar 2, 2021)

try harder


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## ian (Mar 2, 2021)

panda said:


> try harder



yes chef!


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