Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles (拉面)

Authentic Lanzhou Lamian, alkaline hand pulled noodles: The Mount Everest of Chinese cooking.
Teaching you how to make Lanzhou-style Lamian is a bit awkward. See… it’s less of a recipe, and more of a skill. It’d be like teaching you a language - I can introduce the stuff you need to know, but you won’t be fluent after your first class. And that’s ok.
As such, there’s been a relative dearth of good information out there in Chinese on this noodle, let alone in English. So we felt like this would be a good video to clear the air a bit.
Written recipe is over here on /r/cooking - apologies for the delay, there was some... feature creep:
/ a_definitiveish_guide_...
-250g Pizza flour
-120g Ice Water mixed with ½ tsp salt
-Any dense oil for rubbing. Olive would work great. We used about ~3 tbsp through the whole process
-10g water mixed with 2g Penghui
Homemade Penghui: 100g salt, 90g sodium carbonate, 8g sodium triphosphate, 2.5g (3/4tsp) sodium metabisulfite.
Remember the fundamental kneading technique - the ‘making the abacus string’: Press everything flat by first punching it down with all your force, then twisting and doing the ‘hand cross’ flattening motion. Then curl up the dough about an inch or so, move down the dough, and repeat that once or twice (depending on the size of your dough) to get a long string. The fold that in half, and optionally fold again if it’s still a little too long. Repeat.
Besides that, Lamian is simply a matter of:
- Do the cat claw to incorporate the flour. Quick knead
- Optional but recommended rest
- Make your abacus string. This will likely take 30-40 minutes and suck
- Add the Penghui. Do either the 3fold2box technique or the abacus string, up to you
- Comb your gluten. Do the twist if you want to look cool and impress your friends. Do the folding if you want to follow us. 5-6 folds is good to pull
- Pull the noodles. Five times for ‘normal thin’, six for ‘hair thin’
So easy lah
If you’re curious about where to buy some of this stuff…
The Penghui is available through agents, but you need to buy a stupid amount of it: www.chinahao.c...
The sodium triphosphate: www.amazon.com...
The sodium metabisulfite: www.amazon.com...
And if you don’t feel like pounding salt, some powdered sodium chloride: www.amazon.com...
As always, huge thank you to Trevor James a.k.a. the Food Ranger for continuing to allow us to raid his backlog for b-roll haha. Super nice of him, if you'd like to see the full video of him eating noodles in Xi'an (and it's a good one), definitely check it out:
• EXTREME Hand Pulled No...
Also a big thank you to “the Perfect Loaf” for their footage of the stretch and fold technique. Hope to see more content from them :)
• Stretch and Folds Duri...
And the video of the conical screw mixer is over here. Super satisfying thing to watch lol. As an aside, if any budding entrepreneurs out there want to manufacture their own penghui… I think the 5L version of this would get the job done. I think this is precisely the type of thing our homemade Penghui was missing:
• Mixing Dry Powders - C...
And lastly, the slow motion pizza toss is here. I would implore you to check out his other videos, especially the squirrel videos. Some old school KZbin right there:
• Pizza Toss Slow Mo
And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
/ chinesecookingdemystified
Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): • Live Stream: Favourite...

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

EDIT: So after some of these comments, I think the best bet would be to use either kosher or pickling salt, first baked in an oven at ~150C for an hour in order to remove any possible moisture (ht @UCUCDDkCcUfwmJjNZRvXr2iw). Once that's cooled down, toss it in a food processor to get into a fine powder (ht NolanSyKinsley), then add in and do the same to grind/mix the other ingredients SANS the sodiium metabisulfite. Then add the Sodium Metabisulfite and mix it gently with a chopstick. While I still think that with this small quantity of sodium metabisulfite here it shouldn''t present any sort problem... there *is* an inhalation risk (especially over long periods of time) so to be extra safe do the next step outside (ht Jeffrey Gulan). Transfer from the food processor to a fine mesh sieve, then sift it again... then toss in the bag with the desiccants. Hey guys, a few notes: 1. Making alkaline lamian is either (1) a restaurant thing that people apprentice/go to school for or (2) a project for the true obsessives. Before you dive in, know what you’re getting yourself into. For most recipes, if something doesn’t work for you on the first go, you might think to yourself “hmm… this recipe’s meh, let me try a different one”. For these noodles, it’d almost certainly be because your technique is off. DO NOT DREAM ABOUT SUCCESSFULLY MAKING THESE ONE YOUR FIRST GO 2. So for people that’re, like, more normal than us… we’d suggest waiting until next week’s video -the chenmian - to hop in. Hell, even if you’re down for the project, you might want to wait to try the easier non-alkaline version first. I understand that it might’ve made some sense for these two videos to’ve been reversed (easier first, harder later), but we felt we just *couldn’t* share the homestyle chenmian without getting this out of the way at first. Because I mean… all those fancy movements that people see at the lamian shops, *that’s* what people are super curious about, yeah? 3. When you’re practicing these, you might get to a place where you just can’t pull them. Maybe you can only get ~3 pulls or something. It’s ok, you can still eat dinner. Flatten the dough, pass it through a pasta maker once or twice. Then cut it into noodles using the pasta maker. The noodles will still be firm and delicious! You just have to be a bit more careful when cooking, as they can break easily in the cooking process. 4. So to get things out of the way, I’m sure some of you might be curious if we’ve seen the recent SeriousEats article by Tim Chin on the subject. In short… yes. See, this video’s been simmering on the backburner for a while (we started learning/testing about two years ago, and testing started in earnest last October)… so when the SE article came out it hit us like a ton of bricks. And Tim actually touched on some of the stuff I was thinking about touching on in the video (extensibility! dough conditioners! disulfite bonds!), so it really threw trying to get this out there into overdrive. 5. Tim’s recipe, however, brings up what we consider to be a fundamental misunderstanding in the anglosphere about the *purpose* of the alkaline in these noodles. See, Tim’s noodles are non-alkaline. There’s this idea out there that somehow alkaline solutions might *help* the dough pull, when the reality is the exact opposite. Making your dough alkaline makes noodles much harder to pull, which’s why the lamian shops have all those… fancy movements. In a lot of ways, making a Lanzhou Beef Noodle soup with non-alkaline noodles would sort of be like making Japanese ramen with spaghetti: blasphemous, but probably still delicious. 6. This being the internet and all though, I feel the need to contextualize the previous note. We do definitely hold very strong opinions on this subject, but I want to say that even if we're correct (which I believe we are haha), simply researching this topic can be very challenging - even delving into Chinese language sources. This took a lot of research. Years worth. So when I'm giving a critique, it's not a value judgement. Tim is an incredibly smart dude. His noodles are probably very tasty. It's simply a reflection of what we've learned. 7. At it’s core, the home-style non-alkaline pulled noodles are pretty easy. Use the same sort of pizza flour, make some abacus string, do a couple long rests, cut them into noodles, pull individually. Works swimmingly - not exactly ‘quick and easy’ but it’s very realistic in a home setting. Less impressive looking though, for sure. And again, we’ll cover that next week. 8. Speaking of flour though, there *is* one difference between the pizza flour and the lamian flour: the former is soft wheat, the latter is hard wheat. Not 100% the difference that makes in the end, but there were some subtle differences when working with the dough. First, pizza flour is actually easier to knead - it seems to soften faster. But then after applying the penghui, pizza flour has this sort of tendency to ‘sag’. It works, for sure. I’d call it a direct sub. But something tells me that if you gave some pizza flour to a chef that’s worked for years in a lamian shop, they’d probably complain about it the whole time lol 9. For those of you out there that’re a bit hesitant to toss some random white powders in your food… feel free to do your own research too! Both Sodium Triphosphate and Sodium Metabisulfite are common (GRAS) food additives. Hell, the former’s often pumped into meat at the supermarket in order to allow it to retain moisture better/look plumper. Interestingly, the old Lanzhou university’s Penghui mix isn’t the only name in the game… and while some contain the reducer (i.e. the Sodium Metabisulfite) basically *all* of them have some sort of emulsifier. Why? No clue. 10. Speaking of emulsifiers - oil. REMEMBER TO KEEP THINGS OILED AT ALL TIME. Some of it will go into the dough, and that’s good! We ended up measuring how much oil we used during this whole process, and the total about is a shade under ~3 tbsp. 11. Oh, and btw… we tried to make solutions out of the sodium metabisulfite/sodium triphosphate. I felt like it might make sense to just have a bottle of sulfite-phosphate-water in the fridge… then when you need it, mix it with saline + (pure sodium carbonate) Kan Sui. Maybe you’d have better luck, but after three different tries of that/slight variations of that theme… that didn’t work for us. 12. So one thing you can do is, if you have some older dough or some failed noodles... you can add some more penghui and bring it back to life. We actually filmed that process, but I didn't have time to get to it in the video. Basically, you just apply touch of the Penghui using the abacus string method, then test the gluten & see if it's good to pull. 13. Last thing - one nuts and bolts filming-related thing that I'm not sure if anyone cares about/picked up on. You might have noticed that the lamian in the intro were a bit uneven. Here's the story. At our new apartment, every time we film we need to finish by ~1am, else the light gets too harsh outside. Ok. Now, Lamian usually get tossed straight into the pot right after pulling... so after pulling the noodles in the video, the shotclock was ticking. We needed to sort the thumbnail, then go to the balcony and get the intro done. But Steph thought we were doing the shot from note #12 right after the thumbnail, so I immediately reacted in horror when she brought the noodles back to the table, started kneading them back together and sprinkling on some Penghui. It wouldn't be the end of the world (though we were *very* happy with the six-pulls batch that was on camera) because we *could* do the process in note #12... except it was like 12:55 and we were then racing against the clock. It wasn't enough time to do a good job with it, so it ended up being a question of (1) do we want slightly uneven noodles in the intro (2) do we want to film the intro either inside or (3) do we want to film again the next day? We chose option #1. You can check out some of the stills else in the video... I promise we aren't lying to you :) I’m sure we’ll add some more notes here later!

[@vickilaw-sparkes4616]

Amazing! One of my favorites!! Thank you!

[@qijingfan5656]

Recommend Gan Qie Niu Rou Recipe

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

oltec31 Yeah re the water I saw that too. Wasn't sure how much time reaction would take though, because we do mix the penghui in with water. If the mixing time would potentially be a variable, what do you think the best way to mix in the sodium metabisulfite would be?

[@RiamsWorld]

Would boiling the water a few times to remove dissolved oxygen limit that factor? Also, what about the technique for ramenizing spaghetti by cooking in baking soda water? What if you cooked non-alkaline handpulled noodles in water with sodium carbonate to get some of that qq but with less difficulty stretching? Or does incorporating it into the dough make a big difference?

[@intheaether]

oltec31 could it be possible that this is mixture is to make a buffered solution at a certain ph. Just enough to make the gluten stretchy but not denature it? Sorry it’s been a while since I did chemistry

[@reedmershon838]

Husband?? Congrats Steph and Chris!!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

haha we got engaged back in December. we were gunna do some sort of relaxed dinner/ceremony-ish thing with friends & family... but COVID-19 got in the way. We had to rush the legal bit... so yeah :) It's been a *long* time coming anyhow lol

[@jadecummings8093]

Congratulations guys on your engagement! I hope you spend a quality time together. 😉

[@canaldofrank7122]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified Congrats!

[@christianmanaog6184]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified I've been following you for forever! Congrats!!

[@jamesblhollands]

Congrats guys!

[@madiw2097]

i am CONSISTENTLY impressed by how talented Steph seems to be at literally everything

[@Raul28153]

and she's cute.

[@jerryshi52]

If anyone in the Lower Mainland is looking for Penghui, it’s available at the 柏仁/Big Crazy store in Richmond, BC. It’s at the very back of the store next to the pickles and chilis. It’s of the same brand used in the video

[@t.o.4251]

Italy 🤝 China --> taking gluten THAT seriously

[@PixelBytesPixelArtist]

not mentioning the other things

[@alexward1319]

@@PixelBytesPixelArtist oof

[@FaceTheNorthStar]

@@PixelBytesPixelArtist oof

[@romxxii]

@@PixelBytesPixelArtist USA's now number one with "the other things", so no need to hassle about it buddy. USA All the Way!

[@WXRBL666]

lol

[@mynameisandong]

So many questions answered. I can finally sleep again!! Great job and so much quality research. Thanks guys :)

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Cheers man, I think you understand our pain here lol

[@Ermude10]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thank you to both of you for trying to bring the art of making hand pulled noodles to KZbin! So very much appreciated!

[@Pridetoons]

I was looking for your comment. I'd still like to see your video on hand pulled noodles.

[@joshevans3452]

Chinese Cooking Remystified.

[@FractalZero]

best comment i've seen this year. exactly how I feel whenever I watch this channel lol

[@finmarx]

Hahahahaha !!! That’s so hilarious…so true

[@aviatorix8805]

I have endless respect for the amount of effort you put into this entire project. I know it's been a long time coming and I greatly appreciate your work.

[@MichaelEdelman1954]

You’ve convinced me to buy them at my local Chinese grocery!

[@vinitlee]

Regarding chemistry: Have you tried a different gluten relaxer? As far as I know, SMS works differently from L-cysteine or glutathione, and from limited tests it seems that the L-cysteine and glutathione approach maintains more gluten strength while still allowing for lots of elongation. I've done a 100,000:17* ratio of flour to glutathione and ended with encouraging results. This may help give more pulls. Glutathione is available online as a supplement. Definitely will start playing with recreating the blue package though, thanks so much for giving a closer look and translation of its contents! *EDIT: missed a 0 when I first posted, ratio was off by an order of magnitude. 17mg Glu per 100g flour is correct

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Ha so basically... we're not smart enough to tinker around *too* much :) We kinda specialize in researching/communicating the tried and true methods - whenever we're 'creative' it's usually simply a matter of trying to find the best sub possible for people (whether re ingredients, or adjustments to Western home kitchens). That said, if you're looking to play around with things, a couple notes/ideas... - We'd add the reducer *after* you do the initial kneading. Obviously, we could be wrong (never tried adding it in early!)... but I'd be extremely careful with the reducing agent. We once tried upping the sodium metabisulfite to the 2-3% range and the end result was almost inedibly soft. When it comes to pulled noodles, I think sometimes people get so caught up in the pull that it's easy to forget the true end goal - a thin, chewy noodle with a nice bite to it. - I think everyone's so focused on gluten relaxers that they're forgetting about the emulsifier. There's some other competing brands of lamian additives that don't even have reducers! But the *do* have emulsifiers. Why is it important? Not sure! - Here's a random article that I found interesting on the subject: link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40538-017-0113-9 Again, we're neither chefs nor food scientists, so I'll leave it up to someone smarter than me to parse it all :) I do think the path of least resistance is just to find a better way to mix the additives used in the blue bag.

[@vinitlee]

​@@ChineseCookingDemystified You're being much too humble! Your work on this stuff is fantastic, and I appreciate that you sometimes just say "to hell with it, we're just going to recreate actual conditions!" (especially thinking of the washing machine simulation in the black bean spareribs video). Adding after: I have definitely seen this as a stressed point in all the traditional sources and interviews with lamian chefs. The dough is mixed and kneaded without penghui, then penghui is added as more kneading happens. This gets explained away in a bunch of manners, but it makes sense; the reducing agents (penghui, SMS, glutathione, etc) will act upon and destroy portions of an existing gluten structure, but perhaps leaving that until later will help form the gluten you need for a stronger noodle. Very much to your note, noodles that pull and then fall apart aren't lamian. Emulsifiers: That's such an amazing point. I have very little knowledge of an emulsifier's role in this process, will definitely dig down and integrate that. Thanks for the link, this seems like a good article in general for unpacking "mystical" processes in Chinese flour products. Let me add a couple links too: www.yamatonoodle.com/noodle-master-labs/ramen-noodle-ingredients-kansui-etc/ (great general resource for alkaline noodles, has been useful for understanding different styles' balances between K2CO3 and Na2CO3, etc) songshuhui.net/archives/56131 songshuhui.net/archives/56138 (Two non-published but still thorough posts on the components of lamian and alkaline noodles)

[@midwestside1969]

Interested to know about the outcome of the Glutathione noodles. How many pulls,etc? Also what would the 10000:17 ratio break down to in bakers percents? I tried to convert with limited math knowledge, but i would venture to bet its 1% or less of the total batch? .5%? .05%? Are you mixing the Glutathione in at the beginning or make a bowl of solution similar to the Penghui and applying it after kneading?

[@vinitlee]

​@@midwestside1969 I can answer some of those questions: Pulls: will need to get back to you on that. The limit of the pulls tended to be unevenness that led to certain strands breaking. Not sure if that's my technique or the chemistry. 10000:17 == 100g flour : 0.17g glutathione powder, so baker's percentage is 0.17 I tried both, both seemed to work. This is somewhat new for me, so limited testing so far. For the water-based solution, I took a capsule of 500mg glutathione and dissolved it in various (large) amounts of water to get different grams(Glu) per mL(water) and watched how much I added after kneading before the dough gained enough elongation.

[@midwestside1969]

@@vinitlee Thanks. Probably wont go down that path. I had many uneven pulls with the nutritional yeast as well.

[@WXRBL666]

i am born and raised in Lanzhou, and I approve this message ! Thank you for spreading the gospel of my hometown to the world !

[@PhatTrumpet2]

Can I get a round of applause for Steph and Chris (mostly Steph) for all the research and elbow grease that went into this video? That Nike Sloth t-shirt alone deserves a friggin' award. (Steph again.) Just kidding, Chris. We love you both, obviously.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

lol nah you're right on the money... Steph is 100% the star of the show here. I (Chris) had one job in this video - make the homemade penghui - and I couldn't quite get the job done :)

[@aaronsakulich4889]

"Broken thick boy" was my nickname in high school....

[@robertnewell4054]

😂😂🤣🤨Straight *G* comment

[@dbrzy8989]

hope you fixed that thick boy, bud

[@mbax9qx2]

“Just do it later" lol that t-shirt suits me perfectly

[@jimbrennan1181]

This is one of the best cooking videos I've ever seen. I have no intention of making Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles but I found the process and the modern history behind it fascinating.

[@acuddlyheadcrab]

Was happily surprised that you are watching both Nilered and Kenji! Would be beyond excited to see you collaborate with them. All that's left if for Ryan from Way of Ramen to get involved in the soup-making process.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Love Kenji and he does seem to poke around here now and then (which is... totally awesome, a kind of 'senpai notices us' kind of feeling lol), but he's way too big time for a collab haha. NileRed is a touch more realistic but he's also also an order of magnitude more popular :) My dream collab with NileRed is on an MSG video - I want nothing more than NileRed to make MSG on his channel haha.

[@jmbkpo]

That difference on the flour explains why all chinese cooks that i see hydrates their flour so well, i thought it was only the chopsticks

[@ricardogao8147]

Damn, you guys are really dedicated! I remember that I asked for this recipe some time ago and you guys replied saying it was hard recipe to master. Now I can see why. MAD RESPECT!

[@acidcraze]

The term "Pizza Flour" can be a little misleading here since not all pizza flour is milled to specifications appropriate for la mein. To understand what flour is appropriate for noodle making you need to be familiar with two rheological principles of dough and something called ash content. Ash content measures the the degree of the endosperm separation from the bran, germ and husk during milling. Lower ash content implies that more starch and gluten forming proteins are present in the flour per gram. Therefore flour with lower ash content will more readily hydrate and form a cohesive dough at lower hydrations. When it comes to Italian flour, tipo "X" is a reference to the ash content. Tipo 00 classification implies that the flour has below 0.50% ash content, typically around 0.35-0.45%. Not all Italian millers mill pizza flour to 00 specifications, it just so happens that antimo caputo chef's flour is "00". Japanese udon flour for example is usually formulated to 0.30 - 0.35% ash content. Furthermore the rheological properties (namely extensibility and elasticity) also play a significant role in noodle texture. Noodle flour requires a certain ratio of extensibility to elasticity. Higher levels of gliadin result in more extensible (easier to stretch) doughs, whereas glutenin results in more elastic (spring back) ones. Millers will blend different varieties of wheats to obtain specific ratios that are optimal for bread, pasta, pastry etc. So just going by ash content is not always enough. While i'm not an expert on la mein noodles, I know for wonton men and ramen noodles doughs with high elasticity and protein content are preferred. Elastic doughs are chewier and have more texture and very difficult to knead and role out. Precisely why you need a bamboo pole or special machinery to produce those noodles. Japanese Udon-Ko is formulated at 8-9% protein but is quite tenacious. "00" Pizza Flour usually runs between 13-14% total protein and "00" Pasta Flour i've seen as far as "9% - 12". Maybe you'll appreciate me nerding out.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Thanks for all these info. Unfortunately, flour in China doesn't include the info on ash content. While I was researching for the recipe, I saw some product examination reports mentioning, but never on the package. So there's no way for us to know the exact number, but it seem like lamian flour is would also fall into the category of low ash content.

[@clubbasher32]

I love how I found somebody who is just as technical and specific and thorough as me. Never change, keep up the hard work.

[@Cyberia398]

Thanks for going above & beyond once again! You really need to replace that marble mortar with a Thai granite mortar & pestle - way more friction & less slipperiness when wet. You can grind rather than pound, which makes pulverising salt (& most spices) much faster and finer. I use it daily for all sorts of things - salad dressings, curry pastes, guacamole (yesterday for crushing Australian Arnott’s Gingernut biscuits - the hardest cookie on the planet) and crushing salt, sugar and spices.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

I'm looking for proper sized and colored one, takes a bit of finding. I just love that tool so much that I also want it to be part of the decoration in the apartment, so I want it to be perfect, lol.

[@bartvanderoordt510]

they both have a place in cooking while a granite mortar is definitely my choice for grinding up salt or spices as it makes easy work of this by actually grinding like a millstone. the marble one is far superior for making things like garlic and black bean sauce or pepper paste where you realy want to mas things to a paste my opinion though also for making the last bits is also a lot easier to clean and has no taste lingering

[@ChefaBrown]

This is it, you found the holy grail!!! I've been trying to make these on and off for the last 12 years and tried so many bullshit techniques and recipes, and read posts speculating how to do it. This looks like the real deal and your food looks amazingly authentic and well prepared, and I'm a trained chef Thanks for the videos , I watched a few when you were starting out and made the crispy roast pork belly and haven't checked them out in a while. You guys have leveled them up!!

[@HeatIcegame]

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A CHEMIST. I am a physcist however and have studied a lot of chemistry and have a general understanding of the proceses behind these reactions. I'm still not a chemist so take what I'm gonna say here with a grain of salt. Something to keep in mind, sodium carbonate will turn back into sodium bicarbonate by re-capturing CO2 in the presence of water under 100ºC. In fact this property of sodium carbonate is used in CO2 capture processes. So if exposed to air, it is not a super fast process but it definetly happens. In moist air sodium metabisulfide also turns into sodium sulfate. That might be the reason why your homemade mix didn't turn out the way you expected it to. What I'd do is try to mix them with everything above 100ºC and immediately transfer into a container with desecants. So I found Peng Hui online (The real blue stuff) The probelm is with transport costs it'd be about 70$ for 1 kg and take a long time due to having to send it from China. Given that you used 2 grams of penghui however this would last for 500 tries of the recipe. Would you say the difference is worth the additional cost here? I'm also worried about being able to keep such a big amount of powder in it's anhydrous state for long enough to even use.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

I would say that if you are serious about trying to learn, I would find a friend or two, pick up the bagged Penghui, and learn on that. I think that would be the most realistic - otherwise, you might not be sure if the problem is your technique or the homemade Penghui. Some people on our Patreon discord were splitting a shipment, something like that would probably be the most realistic idea for people just starting out (promise not trying to upsell here lol, but joining the Patreon costs a buck... might be worth rolling the dice & seeing if you can get in on it/seeing if others there also wanna split a shipment? just looking at things from an expected return sort of perspective haha). Basically, the homemade Penghui was way better than nothing though, even though I wasn't overly content with it. I wanted a *direct* sub, but I'd say it was 70-80% as effective. I think someone smarter than me could get to 100, and I also hope that there could be some random company out there that says 'hey, we've got a screw mixer and desiccants, this seems easy enough'... so that people don't NEED to import it.

[@teslashark]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified This will probably banboozle whatever authority that comes across the powder, but I salute every one of your efforts

[@teslashark]

It's not crack, but deservedly more addictive

[@Mryodamiles]

Hey! I recently found a simplified recipe that call for alkaline water (the stuff they sell in grocery store with health benefit claims) instead of Peng Hui. I’m not sure how well it work versus real recipe but from the video ... the guy seems knowledgeable and done this for years

[@jrblast]

There are probably hand pulled noodle shops around (at least where I live, in Canada), they must be getting their Peng Hui from somewhere. You may be able to ask them to order some for you? It's worth a try. I know they can sometimes be tight lipped about how to make it, but penghui isn't exactly a secret, so hopefully they'll be willing to pass some on.

[@raeperonneau4941]

I love the fact that you do everything you can to make all of your recipes accessible to those of us in the west. The effort is much appreciated!

[@cephalopodsquids]

You can use 00 flour (which is often used in pizza flour, the package you got is just 00-flour), 00 refers to how fine it is but most of it on the market (at least in the US) is geared towards pizza and pasta making so it has the higher gluten content.

[@jameszhang3672]

As a Lanzhou-er (not sure that's the right way to put it), I have to say I am utterly impressed.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Hope lamian masters won't be mad at us for spilling the "secret ingredient" to westerners, lol.

[@isoccer_singing1794]

“Aggressively unavailable”- the perfect words😂 I’m gonna use that

[@GoodBadGroovy]

This was fantastic, also puts the difficulty Binging with Babish was having, when he tried it last year, into context. Thank you.

[@airencracken]

Was just talking to my wife about how I'd love to learn how to make hand pulled lanzhou noodles the other day. Thanks for the info!

[@jamesblhollands]

I'm really enjoying your next level science direction that you're occasionally taking, it's super smart and fascinating, well done guys.

[@howchildish]

8:10 Me just watching this video. Seriously you can tell how much effort Steph is using when folding the dough because with the way the table bends.

[@bhughes3663]

Thank you so much for this. I've tried all the other methods I've seen so far, and they all come out flat. Cant wait to try this one!

[@ems7623]

Holy crap dude. You two definitely like a challenge!

[@markcouch4235]

I lived in Guangzhou China for a decade - lots of Lanzhou Lamian shops in every corner of the city - such a great go-to comfort food!

[@ahmedalsadik]

Thank you for the sincerity. I’ve tried it several times after watching those happy-music smiling-faces videos on YT that just endlessly repeat how easy it is to do at home! Every time ended in pathetic disaster. You are one of the few real cooking channels, not entertainment vaguely related to food, glitzy and empty of useful content. I will now proceed to delete any intention in my head of doing la mien, ramen it is from now on :) PS Maybe you can start a business shipping out that magic flower out of China.

[@takusaka3667]

Peter pulls noodles is a master at pulled noodles and teaches everything and even how you can pull with just water, salt and any flour

[@secondhandsmoke10]

I miss his videos, they were so informative and detailed The only pulled-noodle videos left involve the use of penghui

[@woolfel]

I've been experimenting for the last few months. With King Arthur AP flour, tearing the dough produces similar results and makes the dough easier to pull. I roll the dough into a log, tear it with my palm, make a rope again and repeat this 4 times. The rest of the process is similar to your video. I pull using the Uyghurs technique

[@ikyiAlter]

1. Congrats! 2. You two are crazy!! Good job though, very informative.

[@tom_something]

My gut tells me that in that cocktail of homemade penghui ingredients, only one or two of the additives is doing most of the work. At least in terms of stretchability. When it comes down to color, flavor, and final texture, maybe the other players have a substantial role. So many individual objectives in food chemistry come down to just one ion in the additive replacing some ion in the food, or changing the overall pH. In either case, this generally seems to be achievable with fewer than three chemical compounds. If my hunch is right, then by narrowing the cocktail down to only the ones essential to the shaping objective, the iterative process will have fewer variables.

[@shakiMiki]

This is such an educational channel.

[@kiltedcripple]

Congratulations on the nuptials! You are my favorite food channel on KZbin, with videos like this demonstrating exactly the kind of culinary relentlessness that I expect. Never give up, and tag each other in often!

[@chefe2152]

For substitution yes use 00 flour but add pure vital wheat gluten,its pure gluten powder.

[@jackkardic5151]

A lanzhou restaurant has been in my neighborhood for two years now and these are the absolute best

[@gregorymorss8178]

You guys are amazing. Thank you for such a through and entertaining class in noodle science.

[@seanwarmington-wan6372]

Phenomenal work as always! Completely blown away

[@quentingascon2754]

Seems like I could have used this video when I tried and failed miserably at hand pulled noodle literally today

[@sonnyr.3842]

This is what I'm talking about. Many people who shows noodle handpulling in KZbin will tell that the only ingredients needed are flour and water. I used to work in a Chinese kitchen before. And did a bit of of noodle pulling, again a bit. While we use ordinary flour we actually add some noodle powder or 'peng hui' to make the dough more strechable. And that's is true I mysfef pull a a noodle like that it's really for beginners.

[@yo-cu3iv]

Couple things that may help. 1. You can use cake flour supplemented with vital wheat gluten if you want another way to create a super fine flour with an elevated protein level. 2. These noodles are pretty high hydration, you can use a stand mixer to bit by bit mix the flour and water.

[@hui-an-xin]

Wait did you guys read my mind. I literally made a big pot of 兰州牛肉面 broth two days ago, and was trying to make some homemade noodles since I ran out of store bought fresh noodles.

[@hanblum]

This is absolutely unhinged... you guys are the best!!

[@bop3039]

Pharmacist here, if you're trying to mix these powders together evenly and reducing granule size at same time in a mortar and pestle. You can try using what's called geometric dilution. We use it when compounding medication.

[@nelsonbrooks]

This Lanzhou lamian opus; is a reference study for all who choose, to walk the path. Congratulations, Chris & Steph.

[@Ianthe22]

Very good video. Any kind of wheat flour, salt, baking soda and water. Combine, knead/tear, rest. Then pull/dust with flour, repeat.... , and then boil. Boom you got noodles. It was never a secret to begin with. It just takes a lot of practice to do it well. However doing the overnight raise of the dough and doing the knead-work right away to make the noodles does make a slight difference.

[@marilynlegaspi4412]

Still looking at this recipe after making it every time❤

[@nalykazule1582]

Wine industry professional here. Sodium metabisulfite is used primarily for cleaning in the wine industry. If it is used. Potassium metabisulfite (KMBS) is what is more commonly used. This is because it helps stabilize the main acid present in wine, in addition to providing anti-microbial activity and helping keep the oxidation/reduction sliding scale more centered. In wine tartaric acid is present in two forms, the majority of which is as it's salt potassium bitartrate (Cream of tartar) which is less soluble in wine than its pure acid. Using KMBS helps stabilize the Cream of tartar in solution and chelate the insoluble salts to drop out of solution. During Cold stabilization an excess of cream of tartar is added to white wines and it is chilled to below freezing so that the acid doesn't drop out of solution after bottling and leave undesirable tartrates in bottle. To the best of my knowledge NaMBS is used more as a cleaning agent, both in brewing and in wine making, mostly because it's cheaper, than it's potassium friend. =D

[@Drew-qs2wk]

Chemistry note: Instead of a dessicant to dehydrate your alkali mixture, have you considered powdering it, then mixing it with a whisk while heating to around 250⁰F / 125⁰C in a saucepan or wok? The heat will actually drive water out of the salt as steam, but it will not drive out the anions or cations as the pure salts have drastically higher melting points. I think this method would be more effective than simply mixing and then resting it with a dessicant. After treating the alkaline salt with heat, you can store it with a dessicant pouch to keep it dry.

[@buttoxide8]

What do you think of Serious Eats version using Nutritional Yeast?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Ok! So I'm sure we'll get some questions on this, so let me consolidate some thoughts on the Tim's SeriousEats recipe here. As I said in the notes though, I want to be completely clear that any critiques we have are *not* a value judgement. Lamian is brutally difficult to research - I (Chris) never would've been able to find all this info, and I live here! Steph is just a phenomenal researcher. So while we do have some pretty fundamental differences of opinion with Tim, I really liked his article and I would suggest everyone go read it. - First off, I think his selection of nutritional yeast as a reducer is completely genius. - Second, I think his (and other more recent Lamian recipes) are a badly needed corrective from other earlier English language recipes that used low gluten cake flour. In the defense of Luke and other people that were desperately trying to figure this out a decade ago... there was a certain logic to the cake flour recipes - it *is* true that for any given 'level' of gluten, Chinese flours tends to be on average ~1% lower protein than their Western counterparts (e.g. Chinese AP is often 8-10% while in the West it's 9-11%; Chinese noodle flour is ~12.5% while Western bread flour is ~13.5% etc). And low protein flour would certainly be easier to pull! The problem with those earlier recipes, however, was the end result using a low protein flour would not make a very good noodle. The ever-excellent Andong also tossed out a high-gluten Lamian recipe a couple months ago. All of these recent recipes would make for tasty noodles. - My fundamental critique of Tim's noodles is that it feels like they're having a bit of an identity crisis. Do they want to be the restaurant style alkaline noodles, or the homestyle non-alkaline noodles? Because if you don't care about whether your noodles are alkaline or not, you certainly don't need to go through this whole song and dance! Use some lamian/pizza flour, make some abacus strings, do a couple rests, cut the noodles, pull them to your liking! It'd save a lot of headache :) We'll toss a recipe for that out next week. - His recipe is pretty high hydration, which kind of shocked us when we first saw it. That said, bread flour (what he's using) absorbs a *lot* more water than pizza flour. So it's possible that we're actually in the same ballpark: slice.seriouseats.com/2011/06/the-pizza-lab-on-flour-foams-and-dough.html That said, I've seen some reports of people having overly sticky dough when following that recipe (however, it could simply be because they were using the wrong flour though) - I think it's possible that some recipe writer out there might be able to combine his approach with this one in order to make a stretchy alkaline Lamian without resorting to sodium metabisulfite/sodium triphosphate. I would guess that his recipe could use some sort of emulsifier, together with a more finely milled flour, in order to successfully incorporate the alkaline. We, however, are not those recipe writers :)

[@smile.__]

Thanks so much for responding this way I totally wanted your thoughts on this. :D

[@ollie6563]

I used that recipe once and it worked far better than any other "hack" I've tried. It definitely reduced the noodles to a putty and they were easily pulled. The came out uneven, but I believe that was just my technique.

[@MrRatFinkster]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified I tried Tim's recipe up in Canada where it is EXTREMELY dry and he was around 67% hydration whereas when I followed his recipe I could not get the dough to relax at all - it was an elastic band after 35mins of kneading so I started adding more water to the dough in stages (via wet hands) and was probably up to an 85% hydration when it was all said and done. After 80mins of kneading I never had a relaxed enough dough to even consider pulling it more than 1ft so I gave up, rolled it out and sliced it. Next time I try I will be upping hydration from the start and probably adding more nutritional yeast to see if that does it.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

@@MrRatFinkster If you're comfortable working with doughs/going by feel... perhaps try his recipe with some pizza flour? Perhaps it's simply a failure of imagination, but 85% hydration just seems *way* too high... even with bread flour. Another variable I've heard through discussions on Reddit is the age of your nutritional yeast - people seem to have gotten better results with new bottles than old. Or because I'm biased... if you're cool with a non-alkaline dough at a 'normal-thin' level, you could also wait for our 'home-style pulled noodle' recipe next week :)

[@IG-88r]

You can alternatively add some grains of long rice in the penghui preparation to capture moisture

[@siyuanzuo3750]

Love your scientific approach.

[@neilthecellist]

"screw mixers" I love these captions hahahahaha

[@thegoodwitch2u]

I think that's a correction; that is, it's not a "hopper"- it's a "screw mixer". A mixer that uses a corkscrew kind of thing instead of a paddle

[@48956l]

I thought he was essentially saying “fuck mixers” lol

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

@@thegoodwitch2u yeah that's correct. IIRC the hopper is the name of a storage container? I was doing research and the mixers used visually looked like a lot like hoppers, which's why that made it into the final script. While I was editing I was like 'wait... I should double check what these things are actually called". But... 'fuck stand mixers' is also a strangely valid interpretation in this specific instance :)

[@jomercer21113]

There's a super-thin pasta made in Sardinia called "god's wool". It's made from semolina flour and water, and then it gets kneaded forever and a day before stretching. They even have little motorized dough-beating rigs to help make that happen.

[@brookechang4942]

I passed by a Lanzhou noodle shop while watching this video on my way to the Chinese grocery store. It's like they were reading my mind and saying, "Just eat here instead..." 😂

[@zyrtor1]

Next time my wife and I move back to China, I think I will just go to my fav lanzhou restaurant. I don't have the discipline for this one. That said, awesome video, learned alot!!!

[@ColdDrunkIndian-qt3mk]

Best instant noodles you can ever get is called LAO Zheng zhou hui mian. I braise my own beef shank and add pickled diacon, green onion and onions along with Chilli and garlic oil. I can make restaurant quality soup with these bagged noodles.

[@cxyyoutube5270]

While Korea and Japan argue about who has the best ramyun/ramen...lets not forget the OG creators behind it...lamian! I didnt think making lamian noodles would be complicated

[@thiagochang6275]

Best lamien video ever made thankyou from Brazil !!

[@rb-ex]

it's a great video imparting appreciation of the time and effort that goes into making these noodles. accordingly, i'm persuaded never to attempt to make this style of noodle at home-- and i have easy access to penghui

[@johnzarick]

I'm likely far too lazy to ever attempt this, but enjoyed learning the process. Plus, you really went the extra mile with your homemade penghui. Bravo

[@RandomMan1]

So alkali noodles depend on the alkalinity of the water. Sodium Carbonate absorbs CO2 and water from the air to turn into sodium bicarbonate. You also may have added too much metabisulfite, which is acidic. Get some ph test strips and get the pH up. More Sodium Carbonate or even food grade lye will likely help.

[@jmbkpo]

You finally did it!

[@jameshaulenbeek5931]

Andong didn't commit KZbin espionage!? 😁 Love it!

[@tranthuylinh3340]

You guys definitely go beyond yourself this time! Great work! I never thought the noodles I ate sometimes are that hard to pull off 😂😂😂😂

[@somefishhere]

Not too many comments yet so I thought I’d drop one since you guys might see it! Thanks a million for the research into this archaic topic; I feel like the art of lamien is a closely guarded secret! Truly demystified! Also I always wonder: do more calories go into making lamien than the flour provides? It’s just a high effort noodle!! Once again... thanks for the years of research!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

It definitely absorbs some oil during kneading, so I guess I'll say it is higher in calories, but not so much.

[@Johnny-dangerously-s5n]

Congratulations on being the first to admit that using peng hui is essential in hand pulled noodles. So many fakers and liars on KZbin. I went to a culinary school in Beijing just to learn this many years ago. They used a big commercial mixer where the peng hui water was added to the dough in the mixer. Although some was kept to work into the dough as well as a bit of oil on ones hands.....it didn’t take very long though....seems to me we were pulling noodles in less than 30 minutes.

[@chairmanimao7982]

this is high tech of cooking, good work

[@lctransit7233]

Jinhua, Zhejiang (which is in Southern China) also kinds of this noodle called 拉拉面, but it is not well-known for non-locals and there is little research about it......I've literally never seen any Jinhua-style lamian restaurant outside Jinhua but I think it deserves more notability and popularity!

[@AriesSupertramp]

This was driving me nuts. Thanks for all the information! Hopefully it will bring me now closer.

[@y2ksw1]

I can make these with common "0" flour, sea-salt, a little bit more water and no chemicals. However it needs considerably more time to prepare, so I use a machine (hand or motor driven) to stretch the dough.

[@woolzem]

Incredible

[@nathanscott5476]

I have been awaiting this day for years

[@aerlands100]

Incredible. We love your videos and I've made up lost time from missing out on learning to cook when I lived in China. Can you guys PLEASE show us how to do some of the Lanzhou lamian stir fried noodle recipes? My mouth waters just thinking about it!

[@regard321]

I just watched a video from serious eats that says you can use nutritional yeast as the dough relaxer. Cannot yet vouch for efficacy or flavor but am eager to give it a try.

[@kngharv]

You are freaking AWESOME!

[@giovannig1219]

Amazing video as always

[@willcresson8776]

If you have one, run your salt and such through a food processor first. It won't get it all the way there but it will save you a lot of time with the mortar and pestle.

[@Djdavidnyan]

so inspiring thanks!

[@MajinXarris]

I'm relieved that someone else has to go through hell of finding out everything about the chemistry of noodles.

[@Michael-se6om]

Amazing. So you are saying I could have saved all that sweat by adding some penghui to my dough ;-) well done, nice Video. I really enjoyed and will definitely watch more than once.

[@xmeowcatx6939]

Great piece of investigative and research work to ascertain the whole story behind this and also in finding substitutions like the pizza flour! Truly impressed. It seems like starting a few years ago, people started getting on the penghui train and wondering if they needed the ash of Halogeton arachnoideus and that was the magical ingredient. I had always wondered whether the penghui had been contributing alkalinity since my grandma described to me the old method of making alkaline water zongzi as one in which she would burn various types of plants (some being better than others) and then soak the ashes in water. Finally, the water would then be used to make the zongzi because minerals from the ashes would alkalinize the water. It seems like the penghui does indeed alkalinize the noodle flour, along with a bit of food science magic to go along! It also looks like you can get the penghui on AliExpress but it's like nearly $40 so your homemade method really is clever!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Yeah I'm super curious about the composition of the old school ash-based Penghui. Is there some sort of reducer in there? Couldn't find anything on the subject in Chinese either.

[@tykszeto]

This was absolutely fasinating... thank you for this! Not sure I will spend the time to make it, but I thought it was very cool!

[@louisp8079]

keep the good work!! awsome videos!

[@Hapidjus_]

Quarantine home work out: noodle edition

[@y2ksw1]

Right! I started making noodles once again early this year. Now almost every day, and I had already noodle dreams 😄

[@kuyaleinad4195]

Was obsessed trying to recreate this a few years ago with the major problem being that I treated the dough more like bread thinking I need to develop gluten... Normally my attempts were nowhere near close and I normally just cut them and make normal noodles 🤷‍♂️ I knew about the sodium carbonate but I always just added it into the dough instead of slowly incorporating it...

[@machineheadslump]

There are a variety of quick mix sauce flours in the US that is just a finely milled flour at 10g protein per 100 gram. I imagine that would work. I have this box of wondra quick mixing flour and will attempt this recipe with it.

[@msittig]

I kept catching myself thinking I was watching a NileRed video, down to the voice.

[@delyar]

Chris has nice guns

[@ohmyohmyohmy2]

You guys are amazing.

[@RamArt9091]

well . .. that explains why I was not able to pull that dough no matter how much i kneaded or added. Well, to pull the rolling pin and a sharp knife if i don't get that flour.

[@andrewcecchetto2164]

I recently saw a video on KZbin where the chef used Nutritional Yeast as a sub for the dough relaxer, I haven’t tested yet.. curious to see if that give more stretch than this method. Either way I’ll be testing both! Thanks for the video !!!

[@uekiguy5886]

See if you can find the question posted by buttoxide8 in this Comment Section. He asked about that vid and Chris gave a lengthy response.

[@andrewcecchetto2164]

Uekiguy cheers!

[@grannykiminalaska]

Lye. when you soak ashes the water drawn off is liquid lye.

[@jameshaulenbeek5931]

Yes. And used correctly in a culinary form, you can produce safe to eat alkaline substances. You can also make lye soap, which is a dangerous process. It's all in the concentration and how you use it.

[@braceharvey]

More often it's soda ash (sodium carbonate) not lye (sodium hydroxide). The lye absorbs co2 and converts to soda ash.

[@grannykiminalaska]

@@jameshaulenbeek5931 bagels❤pretzels