BEST Chinese Hand Pulled Noodle Recipe! - Biang Biang Noodles

Hey guys, what's up? It's Mike Chen. I know I haven't done a recipe video for a while, so let's do one. And this isn't just any recipe. You guys remember that video I did about my favorite noodles ever? This noodle dish has many names. It's called belt noodles because it's really wide. It's also called 油泼面, which means oil splash noodles. It's also called 扁扁面. And that's really interesting because the word 扁 is not really in any Chinese dictionary. Of course, there are many legends about where this name came from. Some say it's from the Qing Dynasty. Some say it's from the sound that the noodle makes when it hits the board where you're making it. Like, biang biang. Anyway, this dish supposedly has a history of thousands of years and is known as a poor person's dish in the beginning. And it originated from my hometown, which I still believe has the best food in China, Xi'an. So this is a really unique noodle dish that I grew up eating. And I'll tell you guys a kind of a sad story, I guess. My grandmother used to make this for me. And I would always ask her when I was growing up. She visited us in the States. And I would ask her to teach me how to make it because this is literally my favorite noodle dish ever. And she said she wouldn't because every time I wanted it, I would have to come home and she'll make it for me. So she wouldn't teach me how to make this dish because she wanted to see me more. And after that, she went back to China. And I did not get a chance to see her again. So she passed away shortly after that. So I never had her noodle dish again, which I crave all the time. And she was so awesome. So every time I eat this dish, it brings back a lot of nostalgic feelings because I ate this dish my whole life. And also, it brings me back, you know, a warm feeling because of my grandmother. So today, I'm gonna teach you guys how to make my favorite noodle dish. Alright, let's go over the ingredients. You'll need two cups of flour, but you really don't want to use all-purpose flour. If that's all you have, then it's kind of okay, but it's not the best. Because the characteristic of this dish, it's wide and it's very bouncy. So when you chew it, it's very springy, it's very bouncy. And you need a flour that has a lot of protein inside. So you need actually bread flour right here. Some soy sauce. Chinese black vinegar. Another characteristic about this dish is that it's supposed to have a lot of vinegar flavor in it. So you definitely need Chinese black vinegar for that. Because this vinegar is not just sour, it also has a very earthy flavor to it. So you gotta have this. Some chicken bouillon, bouillon, bouillon, bouillon powder, whatever you call it. If you don't have this, you can use salt. But I really like this in this dish. Some minced garlic. Green onions chopped up. Crushed red peppers. Peanut oil. And salt. Few leaves of bok choy. And some bean sprouts. So let me tell you guys a little about how this dish is gonna come together. We're gonna make the noodles fresh. After we get the noodles out, we're gonna mix our sauce. Which is really just soy sauce, vinegar, and salt or chicken bouillon powder. Then we're gonna put the dry hot chili powder. Green onions and garlic. We're gonna splash that on top of the noodle dish itself. Then we're gonna heat up our peanut oil. And we're gonna pour it on top of the garlic, green onions, and the chili powder. Basically what you're doing is you're making fresh chili oil right on top of the noodles. And that's a very important part of this dish. Because when you pour the hot oil over the chili powder, the green onions, and the garlic. It's gonna give you such an awesome aroma that's gonna blend in with the noodles. It's gonna smell so awesome. You're gonna wanna bottle that stuff and use it as a perfume. So in essence, fairly simple ingredients. That's why they call it a poor man's dish back then. And the hardest part is, of course, making the noodles. So let's get started. Scoop out two cups of the flour. And this is really important. Before you add the water to the flour, make sure to add a teaspoon of salt. What this is gonna do, it's gonna make your dough really bouncy and not easily breakable. So when you stretch it, it's not just gonna fall apart. Get a pair of chopsticks, a cup of lukewarm water, and slowly mix the water in. Don't dump it in all at once. Also, when you're stirring the flour, only stir in one direction. Once all the water is in, we're gonna get our hands dirty. We're gonna knead this dough for about 10 minutes. And because it is quite a long time, I'm gonna watch my favorite episode of Korean drama, like some Martian star thing. You guys know what I'm talking about. This is my first Korean drama, and I feel a little addicted. So hopefully, after this, I can just stop. All right, there we go. Those 10 minutes just flew by. Put your dough into whatever, a container, and just cover it up. And we're gonna let this sit for half an hour. 30 minutes are up. Now, we're gonna cut up our dough. So splash some flour on your cutting board. And we're gonna make this thing into the shape of a little loaf. Cut this into four even sections. Now, we're gonna roll them into a cylinder shape, like little egg rolls. Take a plate. Add some vegetable oil onto it. Cover the entire dough in vegetable oil. Cover with plastic wrap. And we're gonna let this sit for another hour. All right, after an hour, you're gonna notice that your little pieces of dough has gotten really soft. And before we change the dough into delicious noodles, we need to take a pot, fill it with water, and bring it to a boil. My water is boiling. Now, you're gonna take your dough, and since it's all nice and soft, you're gonna kind of just form it even more into like a little egg roll and smooth it out. Put it on your cutting board. And then you're gonna just flatten it. Take out your rolling pin again and just give it a little roll. Make it flatter. Put a horizontal on your cutting board and roll it out. And here, you're gonna make the edges a little extra thin. So you're gonna have a piece of dough. Well, mine's not the prettiest thing in the world. That sort of resembles a little rectangle. And now, boys and girls, it's the fun part. Take your rolling pin, put it to where you think a third of your rectangle is, and just clamp it down. Give a little push. So you make that nice indentation right here. Do it again. Again, a third. There you go. See that right there? Set your rolling pin aside. Now, here's where it gets really fun. And this is where a lot of people say, Biang Biang Mian gets its name. Take it, stretch it out a little bit, and just go up and down with it. Go up and down and smash it on your board as you kind of lightly pull. Don't pull it too hard. Just gradually stretch it. Smack it on the board and stretch it. Mine's coming apart because I pushed a little too hard with the rolling pin, but that's okay. Just stretch it out so the noodle is nice and long. And you see how it's not really breaking lengthwise. I mean, it is breaking where I used the rolling pin and gave it a lot of pressure. But otherwise, it's pretty strong. That's really due to the salt. That's why we add that teaspoon of salt. Smash it down a few times. Get this thing nice and long and smooth. And this is pretty fun. All right. And you see how, like, it's already kind of coming apart where, again, I put the rolling pin down at. So just go ahead and tear that apart right there, and it comes apart really nicely. Just pull it apart. See how that's coming apart really easily into basically three strips of long noodles. And there you go, guys. That's how you make the best noodles ever. The reason why we had the water boiling is that as soon as you stretch the noodles, we're going to put this in. But I want to cook all my noodles, so I'm going to stretch all my noodles first. And make sure when you put this down somewhere, don't put it into a ball or else it's going to, you know, turn into a clump. Just set it down nicely. And don't set it down for too long. So you got to be really quick about this. So let's do this again. Take another piece of dough, roll it out, flatten it, roll it out vertically into a rectangle, and make it as even as possible. All right. Put some pressure on it. Maybe not as much as I did before so it doesn't come apart as easily as it did before. There you go. Take this, gently up and down, up and down, pull and stretch, smack it against your table or board or wherever you're using, and it's going to gradually become long and beautiful. I love that sound. All right. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Pull it apart. Comes apart easy. There you go. I made two already. I'm going to go ahead and put this into my water. As soon as it goes into the water, guys, take a chopstick and swirl it around so it doesn't stick to each other. And that's going to cook for about two to three minutes, and it's ready to eat. This recipe I gave you guys is for two people, and usually that's not a problem for me because I can eat for two, three, four, 20. But today it's really late, and I really don't want all this dough in my stomach before I go to bed. So these two I'm going to save for tomorrow. It's going to be just as good. As our noodle is being cooked, take your peanut oil that we had before, dump it into a pan, and go ahead and heat this up. Here we go. Look at these noodles. Look how pretty they are. These are awesome. Cannot wait to eat you. And as we heat up the oil, you guys remember those veggies from before, the sprouts and the bok choy? We're going to go ahead and blanch this really quick in the water that we used to boil the noodles. As that is blanching, all of the ingredients we have from before, let's go ahead and put it on the noodles. Garlic. You guys can use as much garlic as you want. I used about four cloves because I love garlic. Green onions, I used one and a half. And dried chili pepper. Make sure you're using the kind that's not too thin, just like these ones right here. I love this stuff, so I'm putting two tablespoons of it. This is my favorite part of the cooking process. Take a ladle. I'm going to go ahead and pour some oil into my ladle, about as much as you like. Make sure your oil is super hot. And go ahead and pour it over your pepper and garlic. Listen to this. Oh, this is the coolest thing. That is probably one of the greatest things you will ever smell in your kitchen. The fried garlic with the fried pepper with the fried green onions. That sizzle with the aroma. Something magical about the whole thing. Next, take your blanched vegetable. Just, you know, spread it out. Now we gotta mix the sauce. If you use the entire dough, I would recommend two tablespoons of soy sauce, one tablespoon of Chinese black vinegar, and a teaspoon of chicken powder or salt. Guys, put all the sauce ingredients into a bowl, mix it well, and then just pour it over the noodles. Then give the noodles a nice mix. Look at these noodles, guys. Look how awesome they are. All covered in hot sauce. Oh, this is so good. I'm so excited about this. This is so good, I wanna cry. See, this is why they also call this belt noodles. Some of these noodles could be as wide as a belt, but they're still nice and thin and tasty. Guys, if you do this right, I guarantee you, these will be some of the best noodles you will ever have in your life. I kid you not, and it came right out of your kitchen. Those of you who saw my video about this dish, I'll tell ya, not a lot of Chinese places make this dish. And even in a place like New York, where there's a ton of Chinese restaurants, first of all, not a lot of people make it. Secondly, not a lot of people make it right. And I'll tell you guys this right now, what I just showed you in the kitchen, if you guys make this, this will be as good or better than any restaurant you go to for this dish, I kid you not. Look how yummy that is, right there. You want some? There you go. You guys, just go ahead, take it, take it. That is beyond amazing. And I really like the restaurant where I got this the first time. I can't tell the difference between what I made and what they made. You should be able to tell how much I love this dish purely based on the fact that there's no meat on here. And I'm eating this like it's a freaking rack of ribs. If you did this right, the noodles are super spongy, super chewy, and this can be full of flavor. I bet you, unless you had this dish, you really never had noodles with this kind of texture before, and you're gonna love it. I mean, look at that. How do you not look at that and not love it? I mean, seriously, here, just take a slurp. I have all the ingredients for this awesome dish in the description box, and please, I beg of you, go try this recipe, because this is a dish, even in China, unless you go to specific regions like my hometown, Xi'an, Shaanxi, you won't really find this dish. And it's really one of the best noodle dishes you will ever have, so go make this at home. It's really not that hard. Like I always say, if I can do it, you can do it. Thank you all so much for watching. See ya.