Homemade Rice Stick Noodles

Learn how to make starch grass noodles and rice noodles with the foundation of potato starch. Caution first: this can’t produce the same rice noodles from the stores but creates a healthier and easy to digest rice noodles at home.

My daughter is a rice noodle lover; she always requires to eat rice noodles every week. Sometimes I don’t have storage in my kitchen like the past two months. Lots of ingredients are hard to find. On the other side, store bought rice noodles are too strong to digest (not sure about the ingredients). So I devoted lots of time and testing to make an easy to digest starch noodle and rice noodle at home.

Rice noodles have lots of forms in China. The round thin thread rice noodle is called as “米线”meaning “rice thread”. While the flat rice noodle is called “米粉”. We make a homemade rice thread noodle in this recipe. The homemade rice noodle will not easily break as long as you follow the steps actually. There are mainly two types of rice stick noodles in China as “酸浆米线” （rice stick noodles made with fermented rice batter）and “干浆米线”. We are actually copying the later type.

Advantage of this recipe
1.You can make this whenever you want as long as the basic ingredients are available.  The process is quite easy and fun.
2.It is easy to digest comparing with store bought rice noodles and also safer and healthier.

Disadvantage of the recipe
1.The rice noodle is not 100% made with rice. So the aroma of the rice is influenced.
2.It can’t be stored if you pursue a right texture. And it should be used right after finished.

Rules behind
Rice flour is not strong enough so the pure rice noodles are super easy to break. So we use potato starch (or sweet potato starch should work fine too ) to work as a strong adhesion. You can use pure potato starch to make potato starch noodles. I made a test to compare the two different types of noodles and find the potato starch noodle is transparent and more chewier. In the picture below, the right noodle is made with 50% starch and 50% rice flour. They get difference in appearance and texture.

Cook’s Note

1.The water should be hot boiling, otherwise the gelatinization can’t be finished.
2.The dough should be well kneaded for a smooth texture, no bump included.
3. Avoid stopping when pressing the noodles.
4. Don’t overcook the noodles. Transfer out as long as the water boils once again.
5.Soak the noodles in a large amount of cold water. Until cooled. And then use it right after that.
6. Re-heat the noodles very quickly.

Instructions

In a large bowl, place potato starch in center and then place rice flour in. Add vegetable cooking oil. Then pour the hot water in while stirring. Let the dough cool slightly. Then knead the dough for several minutes until smooth and there is no small bump. The dough will be quite stretchable. Highly recommend you kneading the folding the dough for at least 5-8 minutes. More kneading makes the dough better.

Assemble the dough into the noodle presser.Bring a large pot of hot water to a boiling and then prepare a cold water at side. Slow down the fire until the hot water boils. Push the noodles into the boiling water. During this process, try to finish this at one stretch and avoid stopping.

Transfer the noodle to the cold water as long as the water boils once again.

In a large pot, add tofu, scallion, mushrooms and then load with chicken stock. Add salt to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes and then place the rice noodles in. Cook for a short time (never overcook) when the soup starts to boil. Turn off fire and top with coriander, chopped scallion and toasted peanuts.