Silver Needle Noodles

Gosh, how is it possible that May starts on Friday?! I feel like the month of January felt like it lasted 5 million years and now the rest of 2020 is moving at the speed of light. The literal bright side is that I’m loving the warmer weather, smell of fresh spring air wafting into our living room, and the longer sunnier days. I can feel my spirit lift up a little, like a droopy house plant that just got moved to a sunnier spot and got a good watering. We’ve started going over to our community garden everyday to water our new vegetables and it makes me so incredibly happy to be there, even if its only for 15 minutes, to watch our little seedlings grow. Occasionally we even get some human interaction from a quick chat (at a far distance) with a new garden friend. It’s the best.

The remaining 99.5% of our time is spent isolating in our apartment, working, building our next online grocery order, teaching virtual dumpling (me), riding the stationary bike (Reuben), and watching all of Grey’s Anatomy from the beginning (also just me), and cooking away in the kitchen.

Before our new roommate Adam, our 50lb bag of all-purpose flour arrived, we were running dangerously low on gluten. So even though I thoroughly enjoy gluten as part of my everyday life, I started experimenting more with all the alternative flours and starches hiding out in the back of our cabinets. A few weeks ago I shared the Savory Almond Mochi Waffles and so many of you have made them already! Which made me hopeful that more people than expected have the same collection of odd flours and starches.

I pretty much always have a few bags of rice flour, wheat starch, and tapioca starch lying around. They might not be super common in everyone’s pantry, but they are in a lot of Asian pantries! Rice flour is amazing for coating tofu or anything else you want fry up and be super crunchy. Also the key ingredient for making rice noodles if you have the time! And if you’ve ever made Crystal Dumplings before, then you probably have a dozen bags of wheat starch and tapioca starch on hand to immediately redo when your first batch comes out a little weird - they are the french macarons of dumplings!

What are silver needle noodles?

If you find yourself with some rice flour, wheat starch, and tapioca starch then you can make Silver Needle Noodles! There’s a little shop on Clement St. that makes a chow mein with needle noodles mixed in and it has the best texture! Crispy chow mein and chewy needle noods.

Silver needle noodles are popular in Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia. They are sometimes called mouse tail noodles but that’s unappetizing. When I shared a little sneak peek of the noods a few weeks ago so many people messaged me sharing how they made these with their grandmas growing up. So sweet! Silver needle noodles weren’t something my family grew up eating so I unfortunately don’t have the memories of make them with my PauPau. But the process is incredibly similar to making the dough for crystal dumplings, which I did learn from my PauPau!

You place all the dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl and pour boiling water over the top. Give it a quick mix and then cover it immediately with plastic wrap. Leave it alone for 10 minutes so that the boiling water steams the starches a little. This is a trick from my PauPau. I haven’t seen it in any other recipes but it definitely allows the dough to hydrate more properly and makes it easier to work with. After 10 minutes, you add some oil to the boil and start kneading until you have a smooth play dough like ball of dough.

You then divide the dough up into 4 portions and work with 1 portion at the time to help prevent the dough from drying out. Roll a portion of dough into a long skinny rope and cut into small pieces. Roll a small bit of dough in between your hands to make a small rope and then apply more pressure to the ends to get the tapered needle tip. After a few tries you’ll even be able to roll out 2 at a time! It’s very much like making pasta.

Once you’ve rolled out all your noodles, boil them for 5 minutes until bouncy and chewy. At this point you can add the noodles into soup or stir fry them with whatever is chilling out in the fridge! I seem to always have carrots and spinach as my quarantine vegetables, so I shared an easy peasy stir fried needle noodle recipe below as well!

Silver Needle Noodles

Serves 2

35g (1/4 cup) wheat starch
90g (3/4 cup) rice flour
35g (¼ cup) tapioca starch
1/2 tsp salt
113g (1/2 cup) boiling water
24g (2 tbsp) oil

1. Place wheat starch, rice flour, tapioca starch, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Pour boiling water over the dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula until the water is absorbed. While the mixture still looks dry, cover with plastic wrap and rest for 10 minutes. The hot water will gently steam the starches and rice flour.

2. Uncover the bowl and add oil to the mixture. Start kneading the dough until you get a smooth dough ball, about 2-3 minutes. If the dough feels dry add another tablespoon of boiling water.

3. Divide the dough into 4 pieces and cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel. Roll out one portion of dough into a ½” diameter rope. Cut the rope into ¼” pieces and roll each piece of dough in between your hands, applying more pressure at the ends of the noodles, to form the needle noodles. Place formed noodles on a baking tray. Repeat with remaining dough.

4. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook noodles for 5 minutes. Drain the noodles and run under cold water. Mix the noodles with 1 tsp of oil to prevent them from sticking once cooked.

5. Add the noodles to soups and stir fries.

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Stir Fried Silver Needle Noodles

Serves 2

2 tbsp oil
1 ½ cup shredded carrots
4oz spinach or greens
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Sriracha
1 tsp Sugar
½ Salt
1 batch of silver needle noodles (see recipe above)

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add carrots and saute for 5 minutes, until carrots are slightly tender and browned. Add spinach, soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha, sugar, and salt. Toss to combine and wilt the spinach.

2. Add the silver needle noodles to the pan and continue to saute for 5 minutes.

3. Serve immediately.