STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS WITH PICTURS

First, combine the rice flour, tapioca flour, and water into a non-stick pot. Stir to mix well and set it aside. Stainless steel pot could work but there is a risk of sticking.

Before we turn on the heat, you have to get the piping bag ready because once the dough is done heating, you need to immediately transfer the dough into the piping bag to stop the cooking process. This is a reusable silicone one, very durable. Do not use the plastic piping bag because you have to squeeze the noodles out with quite a lot of force, and the plastic ones will break right away.

As for the piping tip, I am using this round one, which is 1/4 of an inch in diameter. This is the perfect size for Taiwanese Rice Noodles. This icing kit comes with 49 different tips, you can play around and find your favorite shape. You can click here to buy it

Now, we can get back to the flour mixture. Turn the heat to low and start heating. Stir constantly. For the first few minutes, the consistency of the mixture will not change at all. It feels like nothing is happening. When it gets to 4 or 5 minutes, the starch will start forming at the bottom. You will collect a big chunk of starch on your spatula as you are stirring. Immediately remove the pot from the stove and take some time to incorporate the lumpy chunks. Once everything becomes smooth and fluent again, you can put it back onto the stove. Keep stirring over low heat. Every time you see the starch forming a big chunk on your spatula, you have to remove it from the heat and incorporate the chunky part evenly before putting it back on the stove. The purpose of doing this is to get an even consistency. This is the first tricky part - a lot of people fail because they didn’t do this right. If your mixture is heating up too fast, it becomes uneven, some parts are hard, some parts are soft, then when you squeeze the dough into noodle strings, they will not be even, and they will break apart.

As you repeat this on and off the stove process, the mixture will get thicker and thicker. Lift up the mixture to check the consistency constantly. If the mixture drips down like a straight ribbon, that is too thin, the noodles will dissolve into the boiling water instantly, and you will end up with a big pot of slurry. Keep heating for a little more.

When you see the mixture is not fluent anymore, lift up a big batch, and one chunk will fall off, then the rest stays on your spatula with a swinging tail. That is the time to transfer the mixture into the piping bag. Do not overcook it otherwise, it becomes too hard, and you can not squeeze it. The window for this perfect consistency is only 30 seconds; if you miss it, you will end up with a failure.

This whole process takes about 15 minutes. It is best to heat up a big pot of water before you start this so when you finish, the water comes to a boil. Take a deep breath and evenly squeeze the noodles into the water. Just do your best to get it as long as you can. Of course, if you have to stop for a second, it is completely fine. The amount that I gave is enough to serve two people, and it will take a few minutes to squeeze.

Turn the heat to high and keep cooking. The cooking time depends on how you gonna use these noodles. If you are going to season and eat the noodles right away, you should cook them fully. When they are fully cooked, they will float to the top of the water. If you are going to use the noodles to make stir fry or boil them again in the broth to make noodle soup, then don’t cook them all the way through, which means you should remove the noodles before they float to the top of the water.

Transfer the noodles into the ice bath. This will give them a nice chewy texture. Look how perfect they came out - so smooth and even. They look like machine-made.

These noodles have the best texture. They are very slippery, pleasantly chewy, and have a little bounce. I love them. You can use stir fry them or use them to make noodle soup. I hope you give this a try soon because I will share lots of recipes in the future to show you how to use these noodles.