The Wayward Adventures of Hand-Pulled Noodles (and Taiwanese Inspired Beef Noodle Soup)

In college, it became almost customary to celebrate a Chinese holiday by making food with friends.  In those days, dumplings were often the edible of choice because of their relative simplicity and cost-effectiveness.  Since I have been making dumplings for dinner on a semi-regular basis, I decided to step it up this year for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  I stretched my horizons into the land of hand-pulled noodles.

Okay, the imagery I tried to use in that last sentence does not work out perfectly.  And although this experiment was not without mishaps along the way, the final bowl of noodles turned out to be pretty tasty.

The Noodles

Hand-pulled noodles, or lamian (拉面), purportedly originated in Lanzhou, the capital city of a Central-Northwestern province of China.  Since then, it has been adapted to different regional specialties as it spread throughout Asia.  Within China, the Beijing style is also somewhat recognized.  Additionally, if you say "lamian" out loud, you may notice very striking linguistic similarities to a certain type of Japanese noodle soup: ramen.  This is no coincidence, because the Japanese may have borrowed the basic principles of lamian and proceeded to mold and evolve the dish into what is known as ramen today.  Certainly, the two bowls of noodles are so different today, they can no longer be compared apples-to-apples.  While the culinary link between lamian and ramen is still debated, it is certain that they share an etymological link.

I began by making the dough using ingredients pictured below, including 150 mL (approximate) water warmed in the microwave for 10-15 seconds and high-gluten flour (高筋粉), an ingredient entirely new to me.

The dough combined about two cups high gluten flour, 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (6:1 ratio) and a sprinkling of salt and baking soda.  I added just enough water to allow for the formation of gluten bonds.  The hard dough was then kneaded for 20 minutes straight.  Adding strength training to my workouts a few months ago paid off, because I have no bread machine!

I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour.  Afterward, I proceeded to flex the dough as the masters do it (skip to 1:16 and 5:19):

Well, I tried to anyway.  My dough was not as elastic as it needed to be.  No matter how much flexing and twisting I performed, the dough would end up breaking mid-stretch.  (Tensile strength profiles, anybody?)  In many videos found during my research, the chef would undulate his pelvis (undulate, because it was not forceful enough to be considered thrusting) while flexing and twisting the dough.  Thinking something was wrong with my form, I gave that a try--ultimately to no avail.

To save my failure, I combined both sets of dough, rolled it flat, and sliced out thin strips of noodles.  Of course, I found out that was the wrong way to go, because even the longest strips broke down in boiling water to around three inches on average.  For the scientifically literate, imagine a slightly left-skewed Gaussian distribution between 2 inches and 5 inches, and that was probably close to how my noodles turned out.

The Broth

But I would not be deterred, because the beef shank broth used for Taiwanese-inspired beef noodle soup turned out to be really tasty.

I briefly browned chunks of beef shank in oil infused with generous amounts of fresh minced garlic, ginger, and green onion whites, pictured above.  (The green onion greens were used later for garnish.)  Two pieces of star anise was also used in the infusion.  Then I added 1/4 cup soy sauce, two tablespoons Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) crispy chili pepper oil, and let the beef cook on both sides.  To be honest, after working so hard on the noodles only to fail, the beef shank was looking tasty enough to eat on the spot.

But as they say...eye on the prize.  After letting the beef cook in soy sauce for around five minutes, I added carrots, tomatoes, rice wine, sugar and topped it off with water.  The pot simmered on low heat for four hours to produce a minimally rich broth.  This also allowed enough time for the beef to cook until it was "fall-apart" tender.  When needed, I replenished the water content.

Dinner is Served

Here is the final product, topped with blanched bok choy and chopped green onion greens set aside earlier for garnish.  Yes, Big Bird bowl is back.  I borrowed my rendition from Jennifer's recipe at Tiny Urban Kitchen.  Incidentally, Jennifer's recipe was adapted from another adaptation, which makes this at least the third adaptation.

Summary critique:

• Noodles need major work.  Who knows if I will ever get there unless I become a noodle chef.
• The soup was very tasty but it was missing something...MSG.  Yeah, no thanks.
• Decorating a bowl of Asian noodle soup needs improvement.