Bún Tươi (Fresh Noodle)

It was a late morning on Saturday when I got a text message from a friend who requested a pot of bún bò Huế (Spicy Beef Noodle Soup) to satisfy her craving.  Bún bò Huế is also my older daughter's favorite Vietnamese dish of all time.  She was thrilled to hear that we were going to cook up her dish, so she went right into the kitchen to help me wash the dishes while the little one helped prepare the dough for the noodle before we headed out to store to gather the ingredients for spicy beef noodle soup.

I had made this Bún Tươi (Fresh Noodle) a number of times before but haven't had the motivation to blog about it since I was not satisfied with how the photos of the noodle turned out.  Also I needed to experiment with different ratio of ingredients just to see if I can achieve a better recipe before I post it.

Quiet a few of my Facebook page followers have been waiting patiently and reminding me to post the recipe.  I do not want you to wait any longer. So here  it is . . . until I can come up with a better one.

You can produce this wonderful fresh noodle  from scratch within 30 minutes.  The noodle is a little softer than the dried noodle that you buy from the supermarket.  The dried noodle taste better partly because we have been conditioned to its texture, but these days, it's hard to trust what goes into making these noodle. To be safe, I have been making fresh noodle for my family to enjoy since we do eat noodle quite often.  

The tool I use to make the noodle is a Trudeau potato ricer.  You can find one on Amazon.  If you look to the right side of my blog, you will see a picture of this potato ricer under 'My Picks'. Click on the picture to purchase it.  For your convenience, you can also click here to purchase it.  The one I own comes with two dishes: one with small holes which I use to make thin noodle and the other one with bigger holes which produce thicker noodle to be used in bún bò Huế.

I had great result on my first try; I hope you will too. If you happen to discover a better recipe for fresh noodle, do share . . . to save me time and misery : -).  

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RECIPE:  Bún Tươi

Printable Recipe

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Ingredients

1 bag rice flour

2 1/2 cups tapioca

2 teaspoons salt

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 1/2-2 2/3 cups boiling hot-water

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Tool

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Directions

Mixing Dough

Bring a tall pot of water to a rolling boil (when water is boiled rapidly with lots of bubbling).  In the meantime, mix well all the ingredients together except water.

When the water is at a full, rolling boil, add 2 1/2 cups of  boiling water to the flour. Use a spatula to mix it up.  The flour mixture is very hot so be careful.  Knead until dough forms a soft, nice smooth ball. Dough that is relatively dry will be too thick and too difficult to press through the plate. If the dough is dried, add a little bit more of boiling hot-water to soften the dough so it can be easy to press through the plate. Add some extra flour if the dough is too tacky.

Divided dough into 5 portions.  Set aside.

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Making Noodle

Place one portion of the dough at a time into the potato ricer. Leave the other covered to prevent drying.

Bring the potato ricer above the boiling pot of water and press the dough down.

thin noodle (bún tươi nhỏ)

Let it drop into a pot of boiling water.  Work on the remaining dough until done.

thick noodle (bún tươi lớn)

After a couple of minutes, noodle will float on top of the water as it cooks.

Drain and rinse it a few times with cold water until water it becomes clear.  Let it drain.

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Presentation

Small size noodle is a good size for bún chả cá (fish patty noodle soup) and larger noodle goes well with bún bò Huế.

Enjoy!