Understand these "skins": What are the differences between cold skin, rice skin, and rolled noodle skin?

The annual midsummer has arrived on time. In this season, delicious food is never absent. In addition to the beer, barbecue, crayfish that have dominated the food charts all year round... various "foods" hidden in the streets and alleys have also won the hearts of many people.

When you think of "skin", what comes to mind? Cold skin? Rice skin? Nian skin? Or rolled noodle skin? Which one do you like best?

Based on the foodie experience accumulated over the years, cold noodles and rice noodles often appear in pairs, rolled noodles like to be independent, and stuffed noodles are a regular on the menus of some northwestern restaurants.

In fact, from a conceptual point of view, the term "liangpi" does not refer to a single kind of food. It is actually a general term for the "skins" mentioned above, including dough skin, rice skin, rolled noodle skin, stuffed skin and so on.

So what kind of skin is the "liangpi" that we often eat?

From the perspective of food raw materials, it should be classified as "dough" because its main raw material is flour.

Cold Noodles

But how does dry flour become chewy, thin, fine and doughy?

In general, its production process mainly includes: kneading and letting the dough rest, washing the dough, making the batter, filtering, and steaming. The specific production method will not be described here. Friends who want to try making cold noodles can search for it by themselves.

So the question is, since the raw material of dough is flour, it is made of grain, so it should be a good choice to use it as a staple food, right?

In fact, the main nutrients in flour are starch, followed by protein and a small amount of fat, vitamins, minerals, etc. However, in the step of "washing the face" we just mentioned, almost most of the nutrients such as protein are removed, and almost all of the starch is left. If it is eaten as a staple food, the sense of fullness will be much lower than before the protein is removed, so it is easy to get hungry if you eat it alone. If you can eat some high-protein foods such as meat, eggs, and soy products with it, this problem can be solved well.

So, where does the protein in flour go? Regarding this question, we still have to talk about the production step of "washing flour".

In fact, everyone is familiar with the product of the face washing process. It is the soul of dough - gluten, so sometimes people also call face washing "washing gluten". The principle of face washing is to separate the starch and high-gluten protein in flour.

The main component of gluten is gluten protein, which is the main protein component of wheat - glutenin and alcohol-soluble prolamin. Because gluten protein is insoluble in water, after adding water and kneading the dough, the protein molecules absorb water and expand, forming a network of spatial structures, and accommodating starch molecules in it. During the process of washing the dough, the starch molecules will continue to escape into the water with the help of the continuous kneading force and the surface tension of the water, and the light yellow substance with a certain elasticity and toughness left is gluten protein (commonly known as raw gluten).

Gluten production process

Therefore, gluten not only plays a role in improving the taste of food, but is also an indispensable "nutritional player" in dough. However, for some sensitive people, gluten protein may cause chronic allergies and intestinal damage, so special attention should be paid.

After talking about the dough, let’s talk about rolling the dough.

There is an extra word "滚", is it hinting to us that it is rolled out from dough?

Of course not!

From the appearance, rolled noodle skin is slightly thicker than dough skin, but much narrower. Friends who have eaten rolled noodle skin know that it has a chewier texture (which can also be understood as hard to chew), and friends with weak teeth may have a harder time eating it. But it is precisely because of the competition between the lips and teeth and the toughness of the food that the taste of the food itself is more vivid.

Rolled dough

From the perspective of raw materials, there is no difference between rolled dough and flat dough, but there is an extra step in the production process - fermentation.

After washing the face, yeast powder or alkaline noodles need to be added to the batter for fermentation. When bubbles appear on the surface and the taste is slightly sour, you can basically proceed to the next step.

It is precisely because of the extra fermentation step that the taste of rolled noodles is a bit sour compared to noodles, but when paired with garlic juice and secret chili oil, the taste is even more irresistible.

Next, we finally talk about the good friend of dough skin - rice skin . Although rice skin always appears together with dough skin, there are many differences between the two:

1. The raw materials are different. The raw materials for making dough skin are flour and water, while the raw materials for making rice skin are indica rice (a kind of rice).

2. Production process. Compared with dough, rice wrapper is a little simpler to make. There is no need to "wash the dough". You only need to beat the soaked rice into rice paste or rice slurry, filter it and steam it.

3. Different appearance. From the appearance, rice wrapper is narrower and thicker than dough wrapper, and its shape is more similar to rolled dough wrapper.

4. Different taste. The texture of rice wrapper is softer and more glutinous than that of flour wrapper, similar to rice noodles, but mellower than rice noodles. It retains the aroma of rice and is not so chewy, so it is more friendly to people with bad teeth.

Qinzhen Rice Noodles

As a delicacy originating from Shaanxi Province, rice skin has become a must-have item in the daily meals of local people. The ways of eating it are also different. The well-known "Qinzhen rice skin" is usually eaten cold, while the Hanzhong hot rice skin is soaked in rice skin soup (i.e. seasoning water). No matter which way of eating it, authentic rice skin generally does not contain gluten, which is a bit regrettable for some gluten lovers.

Hanzhong hot rice noodles

Although snacks such as rice skin, cold skin, and rolled noodle skin have spread from Shaanxi to the whole country and have a large number of loyal fans, from a nutritional point of view, they are all starch processed products with low nutritional value and belong to the same category as the vermicelli and rice noodles we usually eat.

Since the nutrient content in them is very low and cannot meet our body's needs for protein, vitamins and other nutrients, they can only be eaten occasionally to satisfy the restless taste buds, but not as a daily main meal. Even if you eat them occasionally, try to pair them with some high-protein foods and vegetables and other foods rich in vitamins to meet the dual needs of taste buds and health.

(Some of the pictures in this article are from the Internet. If there are any copyright issues, please contact us.)