Tear Noodle

During the new year holiday, we noticed there was a new restaurant opened nearby the Northcote Library where I and my wife usually spend our Saturday mornings. The three Chinese characters "手扯麵" on the menu posted on the window outside of Xi'an Food Bar drew our attention. From the meaning of these three characters, we imagined the noodle was made by tearing the dough into finer strips to be ready for cooking. That must be it, but how the tearing technique is like? Curiosity pulled us into this restaurant and ordered two bowls of Tear Noodle with Fried Bean Sauce.

I selected a table with the best position for me to observe how the chef tore the dough into the right size of strips of noodle. The kitchen is not hidden in another quarter, instead, the customers can watch how their dishes are done by the chefs. The owner is smart that he adopts this tactic to attract more curious customers to come in.

I had watched several times on TV how Pull Noodle was made. It was spectacular, I would say, watching the whole process of making Pull Noodle. Here is one in Youtube. The making of Tear Noodle was not as high skill demanding as Pull Noodle.

I saw the chef began to stretch on a piece of dough the shape of rectangular. When it was stretched to about 30 cm he began to shake the band shape of dough up and down and smack it against the bench while at the same time to pull it further apart to make the dough strap even thinner. When the right thickness of the dough strap was reached, he then tore from the middle of the strap into finer threads of noodle and throw them straight into the pot of boiling water.

When the bowl of noodle was served to my table, each piece of the noodle looked very lively fresh. I pick up a few threads of it and put them into mouth. Beside the tasty sauce that made my taste bud cry, the special elasticity of the noodle made the chewing a delighted experience. So the whole bowl of noodle was finished in no time.

I think I can make it myself. It is not as skill demanding as Pull Noodle which might require years of on-job practice. But with this Tear Noodle, I think a couple of tries should make me there. So one day I asked my wife to make me a small dough for test.

First I rolled the dough into a shape of a rod of about 4 cm in diameter. Then divided it into pieces of 10 cm each.
Then flattened each of these 10 cm long dough pieces by palm into rectangular shape of about 10x15x1 cm. Then applied a thin coat of oil all over the dough piece, stacked them in a box with lid on and kept it in the fridge to wait for the tearing process to begin at the desired cooking time.Tearing is the part most challenging and fascinating in the whole process. It requires some practice before you can tear a strip of the right width all the way along the stretched piece of band dough from one end to another. At the beginning stage, when you are able to tear a fine strip off the band dough for a reasonable length by chance, you will become so excited that you might scream your head off. At least I and my wife were like that at our second practice which we made our Tear Noodle look quite like that in the restaurant.
Recently I Googled "手扯麵". Tear Noodle, I found a lot of blog posts talking about this handcraft. One said that he was addicted to it and had made Tear Noodle for meal everyday since he learned it from somewhere.

As to me, I am so fascinated by this way of making noodle for the following reasons:

• It sort of entitles you to be a Noodle Master and thus increases your self-esteem.
• Not any other tool such as knife, rolling stick or big working bench is needed than your hands.
• You don't need to sprinkle a lot of dry flour in the noodle making process in order to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other and make the working area dusty and messy.

Are you ready? Let's make a Tear Noodle meal for dinner tonight.