Making rice noodles

[kleinebre]

After I've been at hand-pulled noodles for a while, I found some people asking me about rice noodles, the obvious benefit being that they could in principle be made gluten-free. Lacking elasticity, I was convinced that one would need an extruder to make rice noodles... Until I saw this video:

Has anyone here made their own rice noodles? Any suggestions?

[Dexter]

Dave Arnold and co just recently tackled this exact video and noodle style. Even posted about it on their tragically-all-but-defunct blog too:

http://www.cookingissues.com/2013/04/29/recipe-quest-shear-thickening-starch-noodles/

For what it's worth, evidently the noodles in the video are actually dangmyun sweet-potato noodles (mistranslated header on the video?), at least according to their posting.

[Chris Amirault]

I go into some detail about them starting here in the fresh pasta topic. I've made them fewer than half a dozen times since then because (1) it's quite a production that (2) doesn't result in a superior product compared to (3) the ones I can now buy fresh at my local Asian market any time.

[Syzygies]

Kanom Jeen is one of my favorite Thai dishes, made with rice noodles from fermented sticky rice paste. On a food tour with Kasma Loha-unchit, a few of us clients broke away with Kasma and the drivers for a breakfast at what was being reported as the best Kanom Jeen place in the region. In the drivers' opinions the fish innard curry stole the show; I want to agree, though it was rather salty, funky, and intense, and the Kanom Jeen noodles should steal the show. The noodle dough was fermented in a long process, then steamed over one wok, and extruded into another. Each wok was over a yard across.

I own a Torchio (Venetian Bigolaro) from http://pastabiz.com/. It is a great toy, even though the two pasta dies that come with it are the least useful of any available; it also accepts any die that works with the "Dolly", a widely used powered pasta press. I recommend being boring, and getting the smallest sizes of plain round noodle dies, which are the most versatile. Truth be told, I don't find that extruded pasta develops as interesting a flavor as rolled pasta from freshly ground flour. However, this device is the bomb for extruding Asian noodles. I too find it easiest to extruded directly into a pot of recently boiling water, which I immediately return to the boil.

I've tried many variations on rice noodles. I don't know an easier way than using a bigolaro.

[Toliver]

Martin Yan, on one of his PBS shows, used a similar method that Chris linked to in his post. Martin used a large leaf as a base in a wok steamer and then poured the rice noodle batter on top of it. He steamed it for a bit and then sliced the resulting rice "pancake" into thicker rice noodles like what you find in Beef Chow Fun. It seemed deceptively simple to make.

[kleinebre]

For what it's worth, evidently the noodles in the video are actually dangmyun sweet-potato noodles (mistranslated header on the video?), at least according to their posting.

That *is* worth quite a bit. The technique reminds me somewhat of making Indonesian-style cendol which officially uses mung bean starch (although that's dripping "glue" into ice water rather than the other way around). Back here in the UK, pure mung bean starch is nowhere to be found, so I experimented and found that tapioca starch is useless for that particular process, whereas corn starch worked fine.

Although not quite the same thing, it does go to show that the kind of starch can make all the difference between success and failure. I did try rice flour with boiling water, but it broke up. The kind of starch may well be the clue there.

I've seen a few rice noodle videos where rice is steamed into a sheet and then cut up into strips. Which, I suppose, does work, but doesn't result in the texture that I'm interested in, in this instance.

Syzygies: Interesting device you're showing there. You got my mind hopping around - I wonder if it can be abused as an oil press

[Syzygies]

You got my mind hopping around - I wonder if it can be abused as an oil press

And I wonder if it can be abused as a duck press.