The special ‘gold’ Chinese noodle that’s thin as a thread
- Known as jinsimian in Chinese, gold thread noodles are thin as hair and reserved for important occasions
- To achieve the effect, chefs carefully run a heavy knife back and forth across dough – a technique that takes a career to perfect
In China, there is a type of noodle so thin that it can pierce the eye of a needle.
They’re called gold thread noodles, or jinsimian, and they’re a speciality of Sichuan province in southwestern China, where the dish is reserved for special occasions.
Why are they called gold thread noodles? “Because after kneading the dough, the colour is gold and when you roll it out, it looks like gold foil,” explains Yang Yongfu, who has been making the noodles for over 24 years.
Only a handful of chefs have mastered the art of making gold thread noodles. The challenge is cutting the dough into fine, delicate strands, a process that is extremely time-consuming and can take up to two hours for a batch.
“The noodles should be thin as paper, delicate, and fine as hair,” Yang says.
To achieve that effect, chefs carefully run a heavy knife back and forth across the dough, cutting thin strands along the way. The best chefs spend their entire careers perfecting this technique.
“You have to be really accurate to get the results you want,” Yang says.
That’s easier said than done. The “very heavy” knife starts to really strain the wrist after three to five minutes, Yang says. “You need wrist strength.”
