Super stretchy chinese noodles

Noodles are one of the most important components of Chinese food culture. No matter whether ordering a hot bowl of noodles in a restaurant or purchasing freshly made noodles to cook at home, it’s one of the cheapest ways to have a fast, fulfilling and hearty feast.

Careful not to break them! Unbroken noodles represent a long life, and some say it’s even bad luck to cut them!

INGREDIENTS:

400g Plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

280ml water at room temperature.

METHOD:

• Combine the four and salt in a large bowl and mix to combine
• Slowly blend in the water with a pair of chopsticks, until the water is integrated and there is no dry flour left
• Kneed the dough, it should be quite soft and sticky so make sure you dust your hands lightly with a little flour
• Kneed for 10-15min further until the dough is springy and smooth
• Dust a bowl with dry flour. Transfer the dough to that bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Let rest at room temperature for a least 2 hours.
• Once rested divide the dough into 4 pieces. Dust the bench and roll each piece out to a thickness of 5mm with a dusted rolling pin
• Cover each piece with plastic and let rest for 1 hour.

TO PULL THE NOODLES

• Bring a medium pot to the boil
• Take one dough sheet out to work with and slice into strips 2cm wide with a flour dusted sharp knife
• Pick each strip up at one end and pull to form a very long noodle, drop into the water quickly and repeat with a quarter of the noodles.
• Boil each batch for 1 min then fish out with a strainer and toss in a little splash of sesame oil
• Work the rest of the dough in this manner
• To serve just dip the strained noodles into boiling water to heat