How to make egg noodles

At home we usually make a lot of fresh pasta, we love it, but especially my son. I couldn't say what he likes more, whether to spend time together in the kitchen preparing it or after tasting it. He is a fan of pasta. I've been introducing him to Asian cuisine for a while now (which I adore!) and so far he's quite liking it. The easiest thing to make a first contact with is the noodles. It could be said that he is directly related to pasta, so with this he was on the safe side. So today I show you how to make egg noodles.

If you like this type of gastronomy, I am sure that noodles will be an ingredient that will never be missing in your pantry. In my case it is so. I always have a wide variety of noodles for different preparations; made with eggs, without eggs, vermicelli, glass noodle, mung bean... Not to mention how versatile they are and how quickly you can prepare a wonderful dish with them. I almost dare to say that it is a better alternative to a sandwich! Although if it's a good Jabugo ham with tomato, I still have to think about it;)

Making noodles at home

For those of you who are used to making fresh pasta at home, it will be very easy to make the noodles. In fact, except for the type of flour we use, we will not notice a difference.

Personally I prefer fresh pasta made with durum wheat flour (semolina), not only for the taste but also for the texture. For me there is no comparison. But in the case of noodles it is different, we need another type of finish and texture. In this case we are going to make some thinly thick noodles that will need very little cooking time.

We will need very basic ingredients that we all have at home such as flour, eggs, salt and water. Then we will only have to mix the ingredients, knead them so that they amalgamate favoring the development of gluten and let them rest. The rests are necessary , not only because when the flour proteins hydrate, they facilitate a better subsequent kneading and, therefore, a better development of gluten.

But, in addition, we need our dough to be completely relaxed so that it allows us to stretch it without problems. And we achieve this thanks to the rest of the dough.

Do the different proportions of water and egg have an influence?

Yes and absolutely yes.

Each ingredient contributes different characteristics to the preparation that we are preparing. On the one hand, the more eggs the noodles contain, the chewier they will be. On the other hand, the greater the amount of water, the smoother its texture will be. So the ideal is to achieve a good balance between both ingredients to obtain the best possible texture.

Always keep in mind that the flour will determine the amount of liquids that your dough admits.

Shaping our noodles

Pasta or, in this case, noodles can be stretched in various ways. Traditionally it was done with a roller, this step is quite entertaining although very rewarding, so it may not be suitable for everyone mainly for reasons of time.

We can also make them with the traditional pasta machine , which allows us to stretch the dough, cut it if it has the accessory or, failing that, cut it with a knife. Finally, we can make them with the KitchenAid pasta accessory that is incredibly convenient. We will only have to hold the portion of dough while it is stretched, in addition to passing it again to achieve the desired thickness. Then we change the accessory and in a few seconds we will have our noodles on the counter. It couldn't be easier and faster!

Adapted recipe and information are from the China Sichuan Food blog .

Ingredients (for 370gr of noodles)

• 240g of strength flour, W=200
• 2 eggs L
• 40-45g of water
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• Cornstarch to sprinkle

Elaboration

1. Prepare the dough for the noodles.
2. In the bowl of our mixer or KA , we add the flour together with the salt and the eggs.
3. Mix with the help of the paddle at speed 1 until obtaining a sandy mass.
4. We begin to add the water little by little and mixing at the same time. We must obtain a homogeneous mass, but one that does not have excess moisture.
5. Once our dough is more or less amalgamated, we turn it onto a clean work surface and knead with our hands. We will do it until we see that the surface begins to be smooth, around 3-4 minutes .
6. We form a ball, cover with film and let rest for 30 minutes .

KitchenAid Artisan food processor and Seigaiha porcelain bowl from Tokyo Design Studio

We work the dough a little more

1. Remove the film and knead the dough again. We will observe that it is very relaxed and slightly sticky.
2. Knead again until a completely smooth surface is obtained.
3. Cover again with film and let rest for 30 minutes .

Forming the ball of dough, sprinkle the dough with cornflour and cut the dough

We stretch the dough

1. We put our pasta accessory in the KitchenAid following the instructions for use. First we will use the smooth roller.
2. Sprinkle a work surface with Maizena and place the dough. We will also sprinkle the surface of this with Maizena.
3. Slightly flatten the dough and cut by dividing it into two equal pieces.
4. We cover the piece of dough with which we are not going to work with film to prevent it from drying out.
5. We slightly stretch the portion that we are going to stretch, turn on the KitchenAid and pass the dough through the roller at thickness 1 and speed 1 . We will do this step twice at this thickness , the rest we will only go through once for each one of them.
6. We reduce to thickness 2 and pass the dough through the roller again. Every two passes through the roller, I recommend you sprinkle and spread the surface of the pasta with cornstarch to prevent the dough from adhering to itself.
7. We repeat this same process until we reach thickness 6.
8. As we stretch the pasta, it will take a lot of length. Cut it in half at the moment you don't feel comfortable with the length of it and continue stretching.
9. Once we have stretched all the pasta, cover it very well with cornstarch on both sides, fold it in on itself and cover it with film.
10. We repeat the same process with the other portion of dough.

Noodle Forming Process with the KitchenAid Pasta Attachment

We form the noodles

1. We changed the roller accessory for the noodle one, the one with the finest cut.
2. We take one of the stretched portions that we had reserved and wrapped in film. We pass through the grooved roller.
3. We take the noodles, sprinkle well with cornflour, remove the excess and form a ball. You can also leave them flat if you prefer.
4. We repeat the process with the rest of the stretched pieces.
5. Once we have our noodles we can eat them the same day (this would be ideal) or store them in an airtight bag or container and refrigerate them for a maximum of 24 hours .

KitchenAid Artisan Robot

Grades

• The flour that I have used to make the noodles is wheat and categorized as strength. Remember that depending on the type of flour you use, its absorption capacity may vary and, therefore, the final amount of water it can admit.
• If you prefer, you can use the widest accessory to form your noodles.
• Due to the use of fresh eggs to carry them out, we cannot leave them refrigerated for more than 24 hours . In case you want to postpone their use, I recommend freezing them in zip-type bags (well covered with cornflour) for a maximum of 1 week . We will cook them straight from the freezer.
• The cooking time for these noodles will depend on the final use that we are going to give them. If we are going to make fried noodles, we will cook them in boiling water for 1 minute and then sauté them for 6-8 minutes. If we are going to cook them to season them with vegetables, meat, sauces... In that case we will cook for 4 minutes. Then we will cook/sauté them for 1-2 minutes with the rest of the food.
• Once we have finished using all the KitchenAid pasta accessories, we should let them air dry for 1-2 hours. Then we will only have to gently shake each accessory to remove any remains that may have remained inside, pass a brush to clean the holes well and clean it with a damp cloth.

Without a doubt I encourage you to prepare these egg noodles at home . They do not require much attention since the kneading is not intensive, quite the contrary, quite restrained. The rests will allow us to do other things at home or even advance part of the preparation that we are going to prepare with them.

Stretching and cutting will take a few minutes if we do it with the KitchenAid accessory, it is really fast and comfortable. If we have children at home, we can ask them to lend us a hand and they will be delighted.

To finish a few minutes of cooking and season them with what you like best. We can't wait for you to cheer up with them and tell us what you've prepared them with.