Materials ?

Old noodle leavening (noodle priming/fatting)

Medium gluten flour 50 grams

Cold water 50 milliliters

Yeast 1 gram

Buns topping

Medium gluten flour 500 grams

Cold water 180 milliliters

Flouring soda/baking soda 1 gram

Cooking oil 1 tablespoon

How to make Northern Old Noodle Steamed Buns ?

To make the old noodles:

Mix the medium gluten flour, water and yeast well and put them into a covered container with a tight lid. Leave to ferment for 12-15 hours at room temperature. Fermented old noodles will have a sour flavor and be full of round holes (no photos for intensive phobias).

The next day's steamed buns:

Mix the previous day's fermented old noodle leavening with 500g of flour and 180ml of water from the next day's steamed bun ingredients, and form a dough (no pasta soda/baking soda at this time).

First fermentation:

Pack the dough in a container, cover or seal the container with plastic wrap, place it in a warm and humid environment, and let it ferment until the dough doubles in size and becomes slightly sour, rubbing it between your fingers, the dough will not spring back, and when you tear it open, it will be like a honeycomb tissue inside. There is no fixed fermentation time, it may take as little as 2 hours or as long as 10 hours.

Knead the dough with alkali:

Mix the oil with the soda/baking soda to form the oil and alkali, then put it on the dough, mix the oil and alkali with the dough by kneading, knead for more than 20 minutes until the surface of the dough is smooth to get an alkali dough.

How to judge how much lye to add: After the first fermentation, when the dough has a honeycomb shape and a slightly sour smell, you can add lye to the dough. You can knead the dough while adding, and when you don't smell the sour odor, tear off a piece of dough as big as your index finger, bake it by the stove, and then break it open. If the dough is not yellow and has no sour odor, then the amount of alkali is appropriate and you can make the shape. If it shows yellow color, it is too much alkali, you can put the dough for a while, and then steam again.

Dividing the dough into dosages and keeping the old ones:

Instead of rising the dough again, divide the kneaded dough into small dosages and start making the shape. Take out one dosage first and cover the rest with a container or plastic wrap, do not expose it to air and pay attention to moisturizing. Meanwhile, set aside a piece of dough (do not steam it) as the old dough, and after the second rise, wrap it in a plastic bag and store it in the refrigerator.

Shape-making:

The easiest way is to knead it into a long strip and cut it with a knife. You can also make round buns: if the buns are small, you can knead them directly into a round shape, as shown in the picture (knead the small dosage as you would a large dough, and press and knead it well;

then place the flat side against the palm of your hand;

push down gently with the palm of your hand, hook your fingers back together and knead them in a rotating direction until the small dosage turns into a round bun;

finally, use the palms of both hands to rub them together. the bottom of the buns (so that the buns are rotated in one direction), so that the buns are bigger at the top and smaller at the bottom, because the buns will collapse in shape a bit after the second rise).

You can also use the method of wrapping buns, take one dough for the heart, then take another dough and roll it out, wrap the dough around the heart, with the creased side facing down, and then knead it to form round buns.

Second development:

After all the dosages are made, put them in a container and let them stand for the second time, 20-30 minutes, the buns will be big enough, not twice as big.

Steaming:

First boil the water in the pot, then drop a few drops of white vinegar, and then put in the hairy buns, steam on high heat for 15 minutes (each bun is about 100 grams), the steaming time according to the size of the buns can be adjusted.

Internal organization:

Steamed buns, the surface is smooth and glossy, and press the surface will quickly pop up without collapsing. The steamed buns in the north have a tighter and chewier texture than those in the south, and the internal organization is small and delicate holes. The hand-kneaded round buns are spiral and layered on the inside.

Tips

1. Regarding the first fermentation time: it is affected by the temperature, humidity and how "old" the old noodles are. The optimal fermentation temperature is 30-35 degrees and humidity is 60-70 degrees. The older the noodles, the more often they are used, the longer the fermentation time will be, because the yeast in the initial old noodle leavening will become less and less. Also because the less affected by the flavor of the yeast, thus making the buns more wheat flavor, the more special flavor.

2. Steamer with a little white vinegar: so as not to steam out of the steamed bun skin with flower spots.

3. old noodle production and storage: the first old noodle as shown in step 1 to make old noodle, make old noodle. After that, after the second hair, leave a piece of dough (about 100 grams) as the old noodle, wrap it in a plastic bag, and put it in the refrigerator for 7 days, and put it in the freezer for 2 months. When used again, room temperature back to warm can be added directly to the steamed bread ingredients and noodles can be, that is, step 2 next day steamed bread.

4. Want more chewy and firm texture: In step 4, in addition to adding oil and alkali, then add dry flour and knead together. Take the amount of buns in this recipe (500g flour), and add up to 100g of dry flour. The more dry flour you add, the firmer and chewier the texture. This kind of steamed bread made by adding dry flour when kneading again is called "choking bread".