Hand Pulled Noodles Lesson

Last night I was invited by my friend Jimmy to attend a personal cooking lesson to learn how to make Chinese hand pulled noodles. He had arranged for Chef Tomm to come teach us a lesson on how to make noodles and then make 2 dishes with the noodles we made- noodles with flavored chicken stock and stir fried noodles (spicy garlic sauce). For details, you can see the link below which is exactly what we did: http://www.cheftomm.com/chinese-hand-pulled-noodles/

It was a lot of fun (and work) since we were pulling noodles for about 2 hours if not more. That's also why there are no pictures- we were too busy and hands dirty! I brought my kitchen aid since the dough can be made by beating it in the kitchen aid mixer for 12 minutes. It was a bit crazy how hard the mixer was working to beat this dough, but it was also amazing to see the result of a very elastic dough. I found that it was all about getting the dough to the right consistency to come out with dry noodles ready to cook and to try to get the strands even. I must say that I think my noodle pulling skills diminished throughout the night somehow or maybe the first batch of dough came out the best... who knows.

The dough was simple to make but it is also very important to measure precisely and feel for the right consistency. The dough can easily be adjusted, you just have to know what you're looking for, so hopefully I'll be motivated to play around with this some more :) The other key is that you have to cook the noodles right after you stretch them, so you have to have a pot of boiling water to cook them in. As soon as they float they're good to go! I actually enjoyed the different sized noodles- skinny somen sized noodles, and fat, doughy, udon sized noodles... variety! I definitely enjoyed my first at home, personal cooking lesson so thanks Jimmy and Chef Tomm!