
INTRODUCTION
I have no complain about this attempt of preparing these silver needle noodles. To me, it is easy to prepare and i like the texture, not overly chewy. I find that it is a very useful recipe especially if you just need a small quantity of the noodles and there is no need to buy a pack .
Well, texture is very individualistic .. Some like it chewy but some like it soft. As for the look, some will expect it to be translucent but my childhood silver noodles were white and not transparent or translucent. As for the colour, it will very much depend on the type of flour you used. If you used 100% wheat starch plus tapioca flour without rice flour, it will be more translucent but with a much chewy texture. If you look at the picture below, I do think it will have much more rice flour than wheat starch.
Talking about wheat starch, I have used two different brands that gave me two types of silver noodles with totally different look . My first attempt produce a beige colour silver needles noodle and it was not transparent. I did not like it and I went out and buy another brand of wheat starch. It produced a whitish almost translucent silver needle noodles almost like those sold in the market.
It is not my style to share the brand of ingredients that I used but for this post, I will advise you to get the above brand which is whiter and more transparent because I realized not all brands are wheat starch are the same.
With regards to the shape and size, all will know I did everything by myself and I am always running short of time, I did not purposely shape it nicely or very small. Making it smaller will require much more time. I am sure lady readers are able to a much neater and nicer silver needle noodles than me and I will leave the shape and size to you. In fact, if it is based on the size recommended by Wikipedia below (source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_needle_noodles), I believed mine is still smaller.
“Silver needle noodle (simplified Chinese: 银针粉; traditional Chinese: 銀針粉; pinyin: yín zhēn fěn) or Rat noodle (Chinese: 老鼠粉; pinyin: lǎo shǔ fěn) is a variety of Chinese noodles. It is short, about 5 cm long and 5 mm in diameter. It has a white semi-transparent colour. The noodle is available in many Chinese markets in Chinese populated areas such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Quite a number of names have been used to describe the noodle. The noodle is more commonly known assilver needle noodle in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and rat noodle in Malaysia and Singapore. It is known aslocupan in Indonesia. The noodles are named as such because the shape of the noodles is long and tapered much like a rat’s tail or a needle.
- Lao Shu Fen, Lou Syu Fan, Lo Cu Pan, Loh See Fun (老鼠粉)
- Yin Zhen Fen, Ngan Jam Fan (銀針粉/银针粉)
- Bee Tai Bak, Mi Tai Mu (米苔目/米台目)
WHAT IS REQUIRED
Recipe adapted from: 自家製銀針粉
Servings: About 1-2 adult servings
- 120 grams of wheat starch
- 1 tablespoon of rice flour
- 2 tablespoons of tapioca flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 180 ml or grams of hot BOILING water
STEPS OF PREPARATION
- In a mixing bowl, put all the flours together, stir until well mixed. Add the hot boiling water, use a chopstick to stir until crumbs are formed. When your hand can handle the heat, use your hand to knead until a pliable dough.
- Roll flat and use a pizza cutter to cut into your desire size. Take one piece of dough and put in between both palms and rub the dough until both sides are thin . Put aside in a bowl dusted with flour. Avoid stacking on each other as it may stick to each other.
- Heat up a pot of hot water , bring to boil, add a few drops of oil, add the silver needle noodles. Once the silver needle noodles float upwards, drain and put in some cold water for 2-3 minutes before draining. The colour will change from whitish to translucent when cooled. If you are preparing it for next meal, you may need to add some oil to avoid stick together when cooled. It is advisable to cook immediately after preparation.
Note:
- Alternative way is to shape the silver needle noodles and drop directly into the hot water . This will avoid the sticking issues.
- To save time, you can just pinch a small dough and start shaping without my suggested cutting above. Trust me, after 2-3 trials, you will roughly know how much to pinch from the big dough.
- If you do not like the slippery and transparent type, you can use the same recipe by using 90% rice flour and 10% tapioca flour
- If you are interested to understand how to cook the simple sweet soya sauce noodles, you can refer to this post: Sarawak Sweet Taugeh or Beansprout Noodles (砂朥越豆芽炒面)
CONCLUSION
i hope this post will benefit those overseas readers who have no excess to this noodles. I was rather shocked that some member of Facebook Group has not been eating this noodles for many years after a food poisoning incident in Malaysia. Pardon me if i am wrong. Well, if you are one of them, you may want to try some homemade silver needle noodles. Lastly, are you worry it will take a long time to prepare this? No,not really, I get it done within half and hour. At the end of the attempt, I can shape 3 silver needle noodles using both palm. I also called my kids to “play” with me and throw them directly into the hot boiling water.
Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have nice day. Should there be any imperfections in my blog layout, bear with me and I am trying hard to rectify it. In the event that you are a follower of Guaishushu at http://kwgls.wordpress.com, please do follow this new blog Guaishushu1 at https://www.guaishushu1.com.
You can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts. Also follow me at INSTAGRAM or TSU, a new social network for some more personal sharing other than recipes.
You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP and FOOD PARADISE 美食天堂to see more recipes. I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.
If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.