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Knife-Cut Noodles with a Firm 45% Dough
By The Dough Table19 Oct 2026

Hand-Rolled & Cut · Core

Knife-Cut Noodles with a Firm 45% Dough

刀切面，45% 的硬面团

Rolled to 2.0 mm, folded, and cut at 5 mm with a cleaver — a noodle built to be chewy on purpose, so that a heavy fermented bean sauce has something to push against.

Flours
Doppio Zero soft wheat (00)
Egg
Whole eggs and water
Water
45%
Sheet
2 mm
Cut
5 mm
Drying
Hung on a dowel · 4h
Work
55 min + 40 min rest
Serves
5

1The ratio

portions
Knife-Cut Noodles with a Firm 45% Dough — 5 portions
Flourgbaker’s %
Doppio Zero soft wheat (00)400100%
Egg2 whole eggs45%
water8020%
olive oil82%
salt41%
Dough weight592 g45% Water

Per portion ≈ 118 g. Every ratio on this site is a baker’s percentage against the flour weight.

2The roller

2mm
  1. 14.8 mm
  2. 24.2 mm
  3. 33.4 mm
  4. 42.6 mm
  5. 52 mm
  6. 61.6 mm
  7. 71.2 mm
  8. 80.9 mm
  9. 90.6 mm

Notch by notch 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5

Cut at 5 (2 mm) → 5 mm Cut

Sauce for this

Zhajiang (fermented bean and pork sauce)

炸酱

Zhajiang is salty, oily and dense. It needs a noodle with a firm core and a rough surface, and it needs the cool cucumber and spring onion alongside to reset the palate between mouthfuls.

Holds 4% chinese

Flour

  • 200 g pork belly, diced 5 mm
  • 150 g sweet fermented flour paste (tianmianjiang)
  • 60 g yellow soybean paste (huangjiang)
  • 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 spring onion, 1 piece ginger, 1 star anise
  • 100 ml water

Method

  1. Render the pork belly in a dry wok for 8 minutes until the fat runs and the cubes are gold.
  2. Add the ginger, star anise and spring onion and fry until fragrant.
  3. Add both pastes and stir constantly over low heat for 15 minutes; they scorch in seconds if you stop.
  4. Loosen with the water and wine, add the sugar, and cook until the oil separates back out and floats.

The sauce is ready when the oil separates and floats. That visible oil is what carries the flavour onto the noodles.

Why this dough is stiff

Two eggs and 80 g of water against 400 g of flour gives 45% hydration, which is on the low side for an egg dough. The stiffness is the point: a soft dough cut at 5 mm collapses in the pot and comes out like a ribbon, and knife-cut noodles are supposed to have a spine.

The dough will resist the rolling pin for the first three passes. Rest it again for ten minutes if it will not extend beyond 40 cm.

Folding with cornstarch, not flour

Dust the 2.0 mm sheet with cornstarch before folding. Cornstarch does not hydrate into gluten the way wheat flour does, so it stays as a dry slip layer between the folds and rinses off in the pot.

Fold into a flat roll 5 cm wide and press the fold lines down lightly. The roll has to be flat, not round; a round roll makes the outer layers longer than the inner ones and the strips come out wedge-shaped.

The cleaver cut

Cut at 5 mm with a Chinese cleaver or a heavy chef's knife, one stroke per cut, starting from the open end and working back toward the folds. Cut the whole roll in one continuous run without stopping.

Stopping halfway leaves a deeper crease at that point, and every strip from there on has a thin spot that breaks in the water.

Cooking and the sauce

Three and a half minutes in a large pot, then rinse briefly in warm water — this is the one Western-adjacent technique here that comes from the Chinese side of the site, and it stops the starch on the surface from gluing the noodles together.

Top with the zhajiang straight from the wok, still hot, and add the raw cucumber matchsticks and spring onion on the side. The cool crunch against the hot sauce is not optional; it is what balances the salt in the fermented paste.

Drying

  1. Hang the strips for 4 hours only — knife-cut noodles are usually cooked fresh or half-dried.
  2. Half-dried noodles at 4 hours have a firmer bite than fully dried ones; fully dried takes 8 hours and is used only for storage.
  3. Store half-dried noodles in the fridge for up to 3 days, tossed in cornstarch.
  4. Fully dried noodles snap into 20 cm lengths and keep in a paper bag.

Keeping Half-dried, three days in the fridge. Fully dried, three weeks in paper. These noodles are at their best within six hours of cutting, when the surface is dry enough not to stick but the core is still soft.

When it goes wrong

Strips break in the water
Because A thin spot from stopping mid-cut, or the sheet went below 2.0 mm.
Do this Cut the roll in one continuous run. Check the sheet with a ruler at three points before folding.
Noodles glue together after draining
Because Not rinsed, or drained too dry without a rinse.
Do this Ten seconds in warm water, then drain. The surface starch has to come off.
Sauce tastes one-dimensionally salty
Because No raw garnish served alongside.
Do this Cucumber and spring onion are part of the recipe, not a garnish. Serve them every time.

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