What are the four major techniques for making noodles in China?

The first one is the stretching method: the dough is formed by flour and noodles, and then after a long time to fully cook, the dough is then stretched by hand or machine repeatedly to become the noodles. This method is mainly hand-operated, requires strong experience, and is a highly technical job with strict requirements on the quality of flour and the degree of maturation. Many of the famous local specialties such as Longshu Noodles and Hollow Noodles are of this type.

The second is to use the rolling method: the dough is first repeatedly rolled or crushed into sheets, and then guillotined with a special knife. The mechanism and freshness of cut noodles that are sold in the market in large quantities in China belong to this category, and then drying (or drying), cutting, packaging and other aspects of the pasta become hanging noodles (so called because of the drying of wet noodles hanging on bamboo poles). In this production process, the degree of maturation of the dough and the conditions of the surrounding environment when the noodles are dried are the most important determinants of the quality of the noodles in this process.

Then there is the extrusion method: the dough is put under pressure in a press mold, and the dough is extruded through the holes in the mold. This type of noodle is called "noodles" and has a firm texture. We often use this method when we make high-fiber noodles from wheat-flour couscous or all couscous. There is machine pressing as well as small-scale hand pressing. In some areas, the pressure of the noodle extruder is higher, and the temperature of the noodle rises slowly during the extrusion process, reaching a semi-finished product state, so that the resulting coarse grain noodles have a high degree of elasticity.