Low Hydration Alkaline Noodle Recipe

Directions

• Mix the sodium carbonate and salt into the water and stir till FULLY disolved
• Dribble some water into the flour. Mix thoroughly with chopsticks or a whisk. Dribble some more in. Mix thoroughly. Repeat until you have used all the water. Eventually you can use your hands to pick up and rub the dough to break it apart. The goal here is to evenly distribute the water as much as possible with as few clumps as possible. It’s challenging, but the more evenly it’s distributed now, the easier the rest of the process will be. Way of Ramen’s video shows this process really well.
• Put your dough in a plastic bag – at least a gallon size, but if you have a 2 gallon one, even better for the next step. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
• Put that plastic bag down on the floor and let as much air as possible out. Seal it back up and step on it with stocking feet. That’s right. We’re kneading with our feet and body weight. Once the dough has compressed into a solid block, break it in half in the bag and stack it on top and then repeat the process 4 or 5 times.
• Cut off a quarter of the dough and roll it out as thin as you can manage with a rolling pin. Starting with the widest setting on your pasta machine, roll the dough through twice. Then fold it in half and roll it again twice. Then do that one more time. This aligns the gluten strands and gets everything nice and silky.
• Begin to tighten down the roller and thin out the dough. I usually go to about the second to last setting. At this point, you can either cut your noodles by hand or put them through the spaghetti cutter. I usually do the latter because by this point I just want to eat ramen.
• Drag your noods through a pile of corn starch, shake them off and lay them down to dehydrate slightly. Once they arent’ sticky at all, you can put them in an airtight container and fridge them for a day or two. This “seasoning” often make them better tasting. But if you’re eating them that night, they’re ready to go into a pot of boiling water.
• Toss them in boiling, unsalted water. Then, just before the water boils again, chuck about 1/2 cup of cold water into the pot to keep it simmering rather than boiling. THis helps with the texture of the noodles.
  
  Since they’re fresh, they only need to cook a minute or two, but the only way to know they’re done is to try them. They should be firm but lack the doughy, uncooked-flour taste.