A Manchu specialty from Zhangsanying (old name 'Yibaijiazi') in Longhua County, Chengde, where snow-white buckwheat flour is milled through thirteen traditional steps. Part of the flour is scalded with boiling water and part mixed with cold water, then the dough is shaved with a two-handled 'pulling knife' into fine three-sided noodles, thin as a needle and white as snow. Boiled and dressed with a sauce of aged chicken broth, shredded pork, diced hazel mushroom and wood-ear, the bowl has been served for over three hundred years.
According to the Chengde Prefecture Gazetteer and the Longhua County Gazetteer, in the twenty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign (1762) the Qianlong Emperor led his court to hunt at the Mulan hunting grounds and lodged at the travelling palace below Longtan Mountain east of the Yixun River as he passed Yibaijiazi. The palace steward Zhou Tong ordered the local noodle masters, the Jiang brothers, to make buckwheat pulled noodles. Delighted by their whiteness and fragrance, Qianlong ate two bowls, praised them as 'white as jade, surpassing snow and frost,' and rewarded the brothers with twenty taels of silver; the noodles were renamed 'pulled imperial noodles' thereafter, and Yibaijiazi white buckwheat noodles won wide fame. The craft is inscribed on Hebei Province's intangible cultural heritage list.
The noodles slip across the tongue with a clean, springy chew, their three-cornered edges catching the savory chicken broth. Buckwheat lends a faint nutty, almost grassy sweetness, while shreds of pork and earthy hazel mushroom deepen each mouthful. Cool, smooth and unhurried, it is the most honest bowl of the northern hill country.
Buckwheat contains no gluten-forming proteins, so a cold-water dough alone would crumble. The traditional fix is to scald part of the flour with boiling water above 95 degrees Celsius, gelatinizing its starch into a sticky paste that binds the remaining cold-mixed flour into a cohesive, extensible dough. Shaving the dough into a three-sided cross-section, rather than round or four-sided, maximizes the surface that grips the sauce while keeping the strand smooth and resilient; locals say 'four-sided noodles are too firm, round ones too soft, only three-sided are truly slippery.' Adjusting the hot-to-cold water ratio by season compensates for how humidity and temperature change starch hydration.
Variations
Vegetarian dressing: replace the chicken broth with a mushroom-and-soybean stock, keeping the wood-ear and hazel mushroom. Easier home dough: cut the pure buckwheat with a small portion of wheat flour so a little gluten helps it hold together. Chilled summer style: rinse the boiled noodles in cold spring water and pour the cooled sauce over them.
On the Palate
Where Imperial Buckwheat Pulled Noodles sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 2
How it's made
7 steps · 40 min active + 20 min waiting
- 15 min
Sift the buckwheat flour. Set aside about one-third in a separate bowl and pour boiling water (above 95 degrees Celsius) over it while stirring with chopsticks to form a scalded paste; let it cool slightly.
Watch outPour water above 95°C over the third of flour and stir hard into a sticky paste — the boiling water gelatinizes the starch, and this glue is the only thing binding gluten-free buckwheat; lukewarm water won't set it.
- 222 min
Combine the scalded paste with the remaining flour, adding cold water a little at a time, and knead into a smooth, firm dough. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.
- 312 min
Make the sauce: bring the aged chicken broth to a simmer, add the shredded pork, diced hazel mushroom and wood-ear, season with salt, and simmer until the broth is clear and fragrant.
- 46 min
Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
- 58 min
Hold the rested dough on a board or paddle and, using a two-handled pulling knife, shave it directly into the boiling water in fine three-sided strands, working quickly and evenly.
- 62 min
Boil the noodles for 1 to 2 minutes until they float and turn translucent, then lift them into serving bowls.
Watch outLift the noodles the moment they float up and turn translucent, one to two minutes — buckwheat has no gluten to protect it and overcooks into mush fast.
- 71 min
Ladle the hot chicken-broth sauce over the noodles and serve immediately.
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