We started pulling noodles. And we pulled a few more. I struggled with the noodles and the saucing. I was enamored with the idea and texture of the noodles, but mine were not amazing. That was a function of learning something new. I also didn’t do well with the saucing. I relied, at first, on a pantry that was weak. I tried to make do rather than make. We took time away from noodle making.
I revisited hand-pulled noodles the other night. This time I had a sauce I wanted to make, a spicy version of ground meat in tomato sauce. It was not fancy. It was familiar and tasty. I made the sauce with relative ease. I made the noodle dough and was prepared to pull and stretch. But, being still unfamiliar with the pulling, stretching, and tearing of the noodles, along with tinkering with the actual dough recipe, I set myself up for not great. Thankfully, the sauce held its own and carried the noodles to the finish line.
But this third poor performance led me to hunker down, refine, and improve what I was doing. I made a new batch of dough, adjusting the salt to enhance the noodles’ texture. I pulled the noodles in smaller sections and omitted the tearing step. The noodles cooked up into beautiful chewy strands. They absorbed my sauce and were the match I was looking for. It took time, persistence, and humility to get a delicious bowl of noodles.
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