Photography by Beth Fuller. Styling by Catrine Kelty.

Ho Fun (Wide Rice Noodles)

Name: Ho Fun (Wide Rice Noodles)
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: Serves 2 to 4 (makes 12 ounces noodles)
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: ¾ cup (3 ounces) white rice flour; ¼ cup (1⅓ ounces) potato starch; vegetable oil for brushing

By David Yu

Time

1¼ hours

Yield

Serves 2 to 4 (makes 12 ounces noodles)

Ingredients

Ingredient check list

¾ cup (3 ounces) white rice flour

¼ cup (1⅓ ounces) potato starch

vegetable oil for brushing

Test Kitchen Techniques

Why This Recipe Works

Ho fun is a wide, flat, steamed rice noodle prized for its marvelously stretchy, slippery chew. But those qualities are ephemeral, so it’s best to either source the noodles fresh from a local producer or make them yourself—eminently doable with basic ingredients and equipment. Supplementing rice flour (finely ground for smoothness) with potato starch (which contains relatively large starch granules and long starch molecules within the granules) increases the viscosity of the batter and the chew of the noodles. To steam them, we mimicked a professional setup with basic kitchen tools—round cake pans, cookie cutters, and a large Dutch oven—that made this method approachable. Steaming the batter in two cake pans—letting the first pan cool while the second pan cooks—allowed us to make multiple noodle sheets while maximizing efficiency. The noodle sheet must make consistent contact with the pan to cook evenly, so we checked on it midway through steaming to ensure that it wasn’t puffing—and if it was, we removed the lid briefly to help it deflate.

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Before You Begin

This recipe requires two 8-inch round nonstick cake pans and two 1-inch-tall metal cookie cutters of any shape. Be sure to use finely ground rice flour (not glutinous or sweet rice flour); do not use stone-ground or coarse rice flour, which will result in grainy noodles. Look for finely ground rice flour and potato starch (not potato flour) in well-stocked supermarkets or Asian markets or online.

Instructions

Combine ¾ cup white rice flour and ¼ cup potato starch in medium bowl. Add 1 cup (8 ounces) water and stir well to form thin batter.

Add water to Dutch oven until it measures about ½ inch deep. Place two 1-inch-tall metal cookie cutters in center of pot.

While water comes to simmer, fold 18 by 6-inch piece of aluminum foil lengthwise to create 18 by 3-inch sling.

Lightly brush 8-inch round cake pan with oil. Stir batter to recombine, then add ⅓ cup to prepared pan, swirling pan gently until batter evenly covers bottom. Place pan in center of sling.

Grasping sling at both ends, lift pan up and place on top of cookie cutters. Tuck ends of sling inward, cover pot, and steam for 5 minutes, checking noodle sheet halfway through steaming to ensure that it has not puffed away from bottom of pan. (If noodle sheet has puffed, cook uncovered for about 15 seconds so that it deflates back to bottom of pan, then re-cover pot and continue steaming.)

Grasping sling at both ends, carefully lift pan from pot and place on wire rack. Slide sling from beneath pan. Brush top of noodle sheet with oil and let cool for 3 minutes.

Use your fingers to gently peel noodle sheet out of pan, then place sheet, oiled side down, on cutting board. Brush top side with oil.

Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6 three more times, using remaining batter and alternating pans, for 4 noodle sheets in total, stacking oiled noodle sheets on top of one another. Wipe pans clean in between batches and add additional water to pot as needed to maintain water level.

Brush blade of a sharp chef’s knife lightly with oil, then slice stacked noodle sheets into ¾-inch-wide strips. Carefully separate strips into individual noodles, place on a large plate (it is OK for noodles to rest on top of one another in a pile) and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Noodles can be prepared up to 2 hours in advance and held at room temperature.