Lanzhou hand pulled noodles

Homemade penghui: measure out the salt, sodium carbonate, sodium triphosphate and sodium metabisulfite.

Pound the salt to a fine powder, straining through a fine mesh sieve to check; pound the other three the same way.

Sift everything together, then sift again.

Run it in a stand mixer with the paddle on speed three for at least thirty minutes.

Store in a ziplock bag with a desiccant, in a cool dry place out of sunlight. The homemade version works, but not quite as well as the bagged product.

Sift the pizza flour to remove clumps.

Dissolve the salt thoroughly into the ice water; the dough should stay at about 28C and never exceed 30C.

Add the water bit by bit, rubbing the flour between thumb and the back of the fingers — the cat claw technique — until it forms fine shreds and no dry flour is left in the bottom of the bowl.

Knead about a minute, then rest about half an hour to make the kneading easier.

Oil the hands liberally, punch the dough down and stretch it out.

With the heel of the palm and straight elbows, press down hard on the dough, pull it up an inch or two, and repeat all the way down; go through it once or twice more until it is a round log.

Fold the dough in half and press flat, then punch it flat, rotate, cross the hands and press down hard; cross the hands the other way and press again; rotate back and repeat. This aligns the gluten into one long rope rather than the crisscross a bread dough wants.

Keep going about half an hour; 40 to 50 minutes is normal when starting out. Keep everything thoroughly oiled.

The dough is ready when small bubbles form as you press it, and when a tear leaves a smooth hole rather than a jagged one.

Dissolve 2 g of penghui in 10 g of water. Press the dough flat, wet the hands with a little of the penghui water and apply it to the top of the dough.

Fold the dough in thirds, then in thirds the other way, flatten and continue, so no penghui water spills out the sides; or add the penghui water bit by bit while kneading flat as before.

With hands and dough thoroughly oiled, fold the dough in half and roll it into a log about a foot and a half long.

Gluten combing: pull the dough to arm's length, fold it in half, press flat and stretch out again; repeat. The dough is ready to pull if it survives five or six of these without breaking. If it breaks, add a bit more penghui, knead longer and try again.

Roll back into a foot and a half log, cut off the uneven ends and slice it in half.

Flour the work surface with a small mound in the middle, roll a half log to about a foot long and pull it out to arm's length.

Nestle one end between index and middle finger and the other between middle and ring; dip the middle of the dough in the flour mound, loop the other hand inside and pull gently from both sides; repeat.

Move slowly and deliberately, never lifting the noodles more than ten centimetres off the work surface. Five pulls gives a normal thin lamian, six gives hair-thin.

Tear off the pile of dough at the end and drop the noodles straight into boiling water to cook.