Seeing whether cooked noodles are good or not can be determined by looking at their cut faces even without tasting them. Shown below are surfaces after noodles are vertically cut, and 2,3,4 are what they look like after boiled. The best face is the one shown in 4. Having gone through maturation process twice, gluten inside the dough have formed web-like structures, which are so strong and elastic that it can ensure forces imposed on dough at pressure-stretching and cutting process. Noodles cut from this dough have absorbed equal amount of water in boiling process from the 4 sides and become like the one in image 4. If noodles without sufficient maturation get pressure-stretched forcefully, the gluten structures inside dough get damaged, undermining its water-absorbing ability. So, noodles like 2 and 3 have gone through pressure-stretching and boiling processes without sufficient maturation. In boiling process, each side absorbs different about of water, resulting in shapes like them. When noodles are made to the shapes of 2 and/or 3, it does not give out good eating textures. Sometimes, some area of noodles are not cooked well whereas the other areas are as each of the 4 sides has different absorbing level of water. Thus, in order to always make noodles with cut faces like 4, rendering great tasting textures, it is necessary for dough to go through maturation process. |
