Youxian Rice Noodles 攸县米粉

Youxian Rice Noodles (攸县米粉) are the thin, dried round rice noodles of Youxian County (攸县) in Zhuzhou (株洲), eastern Hunan. Hunan Geography (湖湘地理) magazine notes that other places keep to wet rice noodles, while Youxian's are dried, and that among southern Chinese rice noodles they are known for being thin. Youxian noodle shops can be found in Hainan, Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai and Qinghai.

Ingredients

The noodles are made from locally grown early-season indica rice. This rice is high in amylose and slightly hard, so Youxian makers age it for one to two years first; the magazine says aged rice gives the noodles a crisper bite.

How it is made

Liao Zhongxin (廖钟鑫), a provincial-level intangible-heritage inheritor and 24th-generation maker, starts each year when the early rice harvest comes in. The aged rice is cleaned, washed, soaked, ground and mixed into a slurry. Part of it is steamed the old way, dried on bamboo mats and cut into strips as traditional Youxian rice sheets (米面); the rest goes through 18 steps, including forming rice granules, extruding, cutting, ageing, steaming a second time and loosening the strands. Other areas extrude the ground rice directly, but Youxian makers steam the rice before extruding it. The finished noodles are white and pliable, smooth in water, and do not turn the soup pasty even after long boiling.

Where it comes from

According to Hunan Geography, the noodles began as vegetarian temple food at the Yangsheng Taoist Temple (阳升观) at Liantang'ao (莲塘坳) in Youxian. Over a thousand years they changed from simple rice fare to hand-made rice sheets and hand-pressed noodles, and finally to today's machine-extruded round noodles.

How it is eaten

Dried Youxian Rice Noodles are soaked, then fried, boiled, steamed or dressed cold. The morning bowl is Youxian shaotang fen (攸县烧汤粉), noodles in a separately boiled, chilli-hot soup: the noodles are boiled for about five minutes in a bamboo basket, while stock seasoned with chilli oil is brought to the boil with lean pork, tofu, pig's blood, egg and greens, then poured over them. At the 2020 Hunan rice-noodle contest the Youxian stall named its main ingredients as Youxian noodles and tofu from Huangtuling town (皇图岭镇). As a late-night snack, Youxian fried noodles are cooked in plenty of oil with local red chillies, chilli powder and seasonal vegetables, then meat or egg, over a fierce flame.