Hand-pulled noodles

Hand-pulled noodles are made by stretching dough by hand into strands rather than cutting it with a knife. This is how Chinese lamian and Japanese tenobe noodles, such as hand-stretched somen, are made. The key demand on the dough is high extensibility, so it is mixed, rested and stretched in more than one pass.

For dried hand-stretched noodles Japan has the JAS 1189 standard, 手延べ干しめん. It describes wheat flour mixed with salt water, coated with edible vegetable oil or starch, stretched gradually while being twisted, and then dried. All stretching between the stages known as kobiki (小引き) and kadoboshi (門干し) must be done by hand, and the dough must be rested for at least the set periods.

The fresh-noodle code draws the line between hand work and machine work more finely. 手打 means every step by hand except kneading: the dough is rolled with a pin and cut with a knife, or after resting is stretched by hand and cut to length. 手打式 and 手打風 are noodles made by slow rolling in crossing directions and cutting with a thin blade close to hand cutting, partly or wholly by machine. Machine-made noodles may not be presented as hand-made.

For lamian, dough extensibility is critical. In Chinese studies it depended on resting, pH and reducing agents: 0.0225% L-cysteine gave the greatest extension, 64 mm, while a long rest lowered extensibility, especially at a high pH of 10.8–13.

Why it matters to you. The word 手打 on fresh Japanese noodles cannot be put on machine-made ones; for those the code has 手打式 or 手打風. And 手延べ on dried noodles means hand-stretching under JAS 1189.