Does a noodle have to be boiled to be considered a noodle?
@Forestofglory well, not in the narrow sense of boiling I don’t think, but it does have to be cooked with water imo. Like, even fried noodles get boiled or steamed first. And if they don’t, I don’t think I’d consider them noodles. like, if you make a noodle dough and then deep fry or pan fry it as a first cooking step, the result is not noodles imo.
@kittyc @Forestofglory ramen noodles i think get dried to dehydrate and then boiled to rehydrate which i’ll accept as a noodle, but i’m unsure if i’ll accept chow mein noodles (fried only)—despite the name they feel like a different category to me
@Satsuma @Forestofglory oh, that’s so interesting, the “chow mein” I’m familiar with definitely are also boiled/soaked first, but that’s probably because I am a philistine living in a philistine country, as far as asian noodle traditions are concerned. But I would definitely call chow mein noodles, so I might have to revise my stance!
@kittyc @Forestofglory i could be wrong! but i had thought they only needed to be boiled/soaked if they’d been dried instead of prepared fresh
@Satsuma @Forestofglory can’t speak to ramen/chow mein, but with European noodles, they definitely all still get boiled, even if made fresh, to my knowledge. So, fresh pasta, or spaetzle, or kaldunen and maultaschen (which are dumplings where the wrapper is noodles), they all get boiled first, and then if you want to fry them you do that afterwards (or the next day/for your next meal, typically)
@kittyc @Forestofglory yeah no i have made european egg pasta which gets boiled! these are much thinner and generally aiming for a firmer final texture though
@kittyc @Forestofglory investigation (reading dubiously sourced internet recipes) reveals a range of recommendations from “boil 1 min” to “rinse in hot water” to chucking straight in the pan depending on how thin the noodle is, how wet the sauce is and how firm one wants the noodle, yeah. so i suppose water is involved in the cooking process in some capacity 😂
@Satsuma @Forestofglory 😂 so I guess we’re back to “define ‘boil’”, good to know 😅
@Satsuma @Forestofglory fascinating, would never have occurred to me! I mean, the texture is kind of a function of how much egg, and how much semolina relative to flour, and how long you boil them for. but I can still see how, with really fine noodles, firmness would be difficult to achieve, you’d need to basically just show them the boiling pot from a distance and immediately take them out again 😂In which case I guess you might as well chuck them in a pan and fry them straight away , especially if you’re maybe going to add sauce or watery veg which will mean they’ll get steamed a little bit anyway