When rolling noodles by hand, more water is used when mixing the noodles, which is about 45% of the amount of flour. When water is added to the flour, after mixing, kneading, and plunging, the proteins and starches in the flour will maximize the absorption of water. When the protein absorbs water, gluten is formed, and when the starch absorbs water, it becomes sticky, and the two together form a dough. The longer the dough is kneaded by hand, the more favorable it is to the formation of the gluten network and the increase in viscosity, which provides the conditions for the good taste of hand-rolled noodles.
Machine-made noodles are made with a small amount of water, about 25% of the flour. After the water is mixed into the flour, the dough is rolled up and down by machinery. This kind of cake, to a large extent, is formed by the forced extrusion of external forces, and is not a natural combination (or not entirely a natural combination). Due to the limited amount of water in the pastry, the proteins cannot fully absorb the water, which greatly reduces the strength of the gluten network. At the same time, the starch can not fully absorb water, the granules are not swollen enough, and its viscosity is much lower.
In practice, we can feel that the dough used for hand-rolled noodles, stretched by hand, generally not easy to tear, but the mechanism of the noodles used in the pasta (dough) is not, stretched by hand easy to break, which can also be seen: hand-rolled noodles used in the dough of high water content, both the formation of gluten network, or viscosity, is better than the mechanism of the dough used in the low-water-content noodles.
II. Forming
When the dough (cake) and (rolled), the next need to form.
Before rolling the noodles by hand, the dough must be completely kneaded. When kneading, the dough is pushed forward with the palms of the hands, but the dough is constantly changing angles, so that all parts of the dough are evenly distributed, and there are no "dead spots" due to uneven pressure. When rolling out the dough, usually put the dough stick on the dough to push forward and roll, roll to the oval, not only to roll forward and back, but also to roll the left and right, so that the whole piece of dough are the same thickness, and then rolled from both sides into a roll, or folded into a trapezoid, with a knife to cut into noodles.
Machine rolling of noodles is different from hand-rolling in that the dough needs to be rolled repeatedly with a roller into a cake sheet before it is formally rolled. However, the mechanical rolling method of exerting force on the dough sheet is only up and down squeezing, and not through various angles to force, so it is not conducive to the formation of gluten network in the dough. When the sheet is rolled, it is cut into noodles with a rolling grooved axle. The effect of this practice is not ideal, the reason is that the speed of electric machinery, the heat generated will make the protein in the flour denaturation, instead of the gluten, viscosity of the noodles to play a perfect and complementary, but will give the finished product is not eaten to bury an unnoticeable hidden trouble, thus weakening the elasticity of the noodles even more.
Three. Cooking
Most of the noodles we eat are cooked in water, which is clear to all of us. But what is not clear is that there is a big difference between hand-rolled noodles and machine-made noodles in the process of boiling water.
When boiling noodles, water is a good heat transfer medium. When the water is heated to boiling and then dropped into the noodles, the water transfers the temperature to the noodles and promotes maturation. Thus, the difference between hand-rolled noodles and machine-made noodles arises, which is easily overlooked.
Let's take hand-rolled noodles as an example and analyze the boiling process. When the noodles into the pot of boiling water, because the hand-rolled noodles itself contains more water, and water is a good heat transfer medium, so the outside of the water temperature through the water in the noodles, it is easy to transfer to the inside of the noodles, when the internal temperature reaches 100 ℃, a little cooking a few minutes the noodles will be fully ripe, fish out will be done. However, the mechanism of the noodles in the cooking, is another situation, especially after drying the noodles, the shortcomings are more prominent. As the mechanism of the water contained in the noodles itself is very little, especially dry noodles almost no water, and noodles can not be the ideal heat transfer medium, so only by the water in the pot will gradually soak the noodles wet, in order to transfer heat and slowly cook the noodles. Accordingly, the mechanism of the noodles in the pot of water in the maturation of the speed is much slower. Usually, the time to cook mechanism noodles is more than twice as long as the time to cook hand-rolled noodles. Practice has shown that the longer the cooking time of the mechanism, the more serious the hydrolysis of the noodles, which ultimately results in poorer quality noodles, that is to say, it is absolutely no hand-rolled noodles in the mouth of the kind of elasticity and tendon feeling.