This is one of my pages on cooking times,
specifically for noodles.
Noodles vary greatly in their cooking times, from fresh noodles that barely need to be put
into hot water to dried noodles that can take up to 15 minutes. To help with the decision,
the makers frequently state cooking times that may or may not bear any relationship with
reality. I've had “soak in cold water for a minute” where in fact I needed 8 minutes
boiling, and just occasionally cases where the recommended cooking time results in mush.
So on this page I'm keeping a list of fantasy and reality.
Portion size
Cooked noodles freeze surprisingly well, so I usually make a large quantity and freeze the
rest. For breakfast, it seems that 180 g portions are best, though I've increased that to
200 g for the Shanxi planed noodles. It seems that for main courses that's enough for two,
at least if one of them is Yvonne.
Remano spaghetti (ALDI)
These are the standard noodles that we eat. They used to look like this:
The noodles are the same. Why do they do that? Does specifying a shorter time sell them
better? Or are they expecting people to use weaker flames and to start timing when the
water (finally) comes back to the boil?
I don't normally eat Woolworths brand products, because they're more expensive than the
alternatives. But in July 2023 (thanks, Vladimir!) we had no alternative.
They proved to be one of the few occasions where the recommended cooking time was
significantly too long. After 8½ minutes they were disintegrating. The value above is my
best guess if there is a next time.
A number of noodles are provided in single-serve “baskets”, which can be cooked
individually. The weights vary considerably, between 45 g and a little over 60 g. I find
the smaller ones a little too small.
The first noodles where the cooking time is correct. They're sold as egg noodles, with the
rather strange restriction “Non-fried”.
On 17 September 2024 I decided that these noodles are too irritating to buy again.
They're at least as good as the alternatives, like Chef's World below, but the basket size
is wrong, they're difficult to separate, and they're considerably more expensive.
These appear to be a fancy version of the Sau Tao noodles above. They don't seem to be any
different from the plain noodles, though my experience with the weight of the cooked noodles
is a little confusing: 2.27x or 2.9x?
There's no indication that they contain egg products.
Note Normally I serve 180 g cooked noodles per portion, and these only supply 150 g.
But they're more consistent, and I think that 150 g is probably enough for these particular
noodles.
Note I originally noted a real time of 7 minutes, but 6 seems just as good,
especially when using them in soup
Like the Sau Tao, these are individual basket noodles. I got them from the “Ballarat Asian
Groceries” next door to the Fruit Shack. They're surprisingly cheap, but also good.
I've had two packages of these noodles, and they seem to be slightly different. For the
first, I wrote:
These noodles are interesting for another reason: I initially wrote to cook them for 4
minutes, but in the course of time I was sufficiently confident in my numbers that I
stopped checking and cooked them for only 2 minutes, in line with other such noodles. And
that seems to be enough.
But they do have a disadvantage, as only became clear some time later: they stick together
when cooking. It takes a lot of stirring to separate them:
More comments in my diary for 2 June 2021 and 28 March 2024. My take is that they're better for fried dishes than soup dishes.
MARION'S KITCHEN rice sticks
These came with a MARION'S KITCHEN set for making Phat Thai. They seem to be some of the
few noodles that are cooked more quickly than advertised. See my diary for more information.
These noodles are a moving target. The photo above dates from September 2021. At the time they didn't seem to have a name, but they repeated it in
5 languages. I like the French one best: « Preparation alimentaire a base de riz », or
“alimentary preparation based on rice”. They also don't mention cooking times. Given that
rice noodles can require from no cooking at all to up to 18 minutes, that's a serious
omission. I first cooked them on 13 September 2021 for 4 minutes, which later seemed to be too long. On 9 October 2022 I tried cooking them again and came to the conclusion that 2 minutes
in hot water would be sufficient, and on 24 October 2022 I discovered that the packages contain individual portion “baskets”
of about 55 g.
In November 2022 I bought another package of these noodles. Now they have changed the
French text, though they still don't state that they're rice noodles. But they now specify
cooking times: 5 to 8 minutes in hot water.
Unit
Cooked
Factor
Recommended
Real
weight
weight
time
time
100 g
210 g
2.1 x
hot water 5-8 minutes
2 minutes
55 g
130 g
2.4 x
hot water 5-8 minutes
2 minutes
Work in progress
Cooking the noodles for 2 minutes seems to be too long; they disintegrate in the serving
dish. I'm experimenting with shorter times. See my diary entries for 26 April 2024 and 6 May 2024.
These noodles are from the Fruit
Shack in Ballarat. They
claim to be Chinese rice “Vermicelli”, but they're also marked in Vietnamese. They're
somewhat transparent and they look more like bean noodles to me. They're a package of 900 g
containing 20 pieces of—they claim—90 g each (clearly it's 45 g). The noodles don't separate
well,
These noodles seem remarkably indifferent to cooking time. On one occasion I cooked them for 25 minutes, and they were no softer. Still,
they're not bad as they are. They're also generously packed: I once weighed a 200 g pack
with 213 g of content.
This instructions state that the noodles should be soaked in hot water. That works, but the
20 minutes are too long. My guess for next time is 15 minutes.
“Heaven Dragon” Bún bò húê
See my diary for 22 June 2021 for more information.
These are half dried fresh noodles, and they need to be kept cool until cooked.
I've decided that it's better to wet them and separate them before cooking, which
significantly affects the cooking time:
I had thought that these noodles would absorb more water, but they were relatively moist
when fresh. I've frozen them in 200 g portions, compared to 180 g for others.
I'm including this for completeness' sake. The noodles are 24 mm wide, and in my package
they were stuck together, so I wasn't able to cook them properly.
I returned them for a refund, but it later occurred to me that it might have worked if I had
first loosened them in hot water. But that's not what the instructions said:
These don't need cooking, but they do need separation. As they come, they're wrapped
together and coated in something fatty.
The instructions recommend to heat them in a
microwave oven of unspecified power for 2 to 3 minutes. I've found that they can then be
separated a little:
“Fantastic” is the brand name, not my assessment. They just need to be placed in hot water,
of which they absorb very little. But they stick together and require manual separation:
I tried these on 27 November 2022. Unlike the “Fantastic” noodles, they don't appear to need cooking,
just to be kept at room temperature for 5 minutes. They're also shorter and crooked. They
don't taste any different from bucatini.
These are fresh noodles that need no cooking. The instructions state that they should be
soaked in water for 10 seconds, which may make sense for frying, but they work without that
in soups.
Another Hokkien mee making unreasonable claims.
Bought at the new Chinese place in Bridge Mall in August 2024. The instructions say to
place into boiling water and simmer for 30 seconds.
Unit
Cooked
Factor
Recommended
Real
weight
weight
time
time
1167 g
1535 g
1.32 x
30 seconds
And what's the truth? They're stuck together so badly that it took me a couple of minutes
just to untangle them. The result was OK, but I'm getting fed up with this kind of issue.
I bought these at the Fruit
Shack a while back. While they're wheat noodles, they're surprisingly pale.
The cooking times are extremely inaccurate. I've cooked them for 7 minutes twice now, and it
seems to be correct. The weight factor could be as high as 2.9. This still needs checking.
I need to revisit this one. Many of the noodles I have bought since are “chewy” when
correctly cooked, and this could also be the case here, in which case I should try again
with the specified 2 minutes.
These noodles are quite heavy when dry. They absorb surprisingly little water, and the
specified cooking time appears to be correct. The current weight is my best guess. They
also stick together badly when cooking, so I think it's best to cook the portions
individually. Because they take up so little water, it seems more appropriate to use
portions of about 150 g rather than my normal 180 g.
They also get quite sticky after cooking. I find it better to rinse them just before adding
to fried dishes.
I bought these in January 2024, but I forget where. The package is only in
(traditional) Chinese, and they come from Taiwan. The noodles are in baskets of
between 70 and 78 g, though it claims to be 60 g.
Unit
Cooked
Factor
Recommended
Real
weight
weight
time
time
75 g
155 g
2.1×
no recommendation
3 min
Longkou vermicelli
These are bean noodles.
I bought these on 22 January 2024, mistaking them for rice noodles.
The instructions seem to be right, though I find them hard to categorize. How hot should
the water be? What happens if I don't use them immediately afterwards?
Havista “Long life” noodles
These noodles claim to be “Long life
noodles”, and the inscription on the package states that they are sau mein (寿面).
But they look nothing like the descriptions I have seen, and they seem to be some of the
shortest I have seen, though long life noodles are supposed to be particularly long.
These noodles are also not very interesting. They quickly become soggy, and I don't think
I'll make any again.
These noodles must take the cake for the most inaccurate instructions. They say to soak
until soft. In English there's not even a mention of water, and in Chinese they also don't
say what they say in Malay, that the water should be hot. But that's still not nearly
enough: they need to be boiled for over 10 minutes. See my diary for more information.
These noodles are also marked as being suitable for 5 to 6 portions, but in fact they're
more than enough for at least 6 portions: they're packed as two cakes of 200 g each, and the
total cooked weight would be round 1.2 kg. I reckon 160 to 180 g per serving, so that's 6.6
to 7.5 portions.
I first made these on 17 March 2024. They're interesting because they want first to be soaked, then
boiled. The times seem to be correct, but they're just basically normal rice noodles.
Once again the cooking times are ridiculous: 1 hour in hot water, after which they're
starting to soften. I boiled them for another 9 minutes, after which they seemed
reasonable. But I can't find any particular advantage in them. Despite my expectations,
they're very different from other laksa noodles.
Spätzle/Spaetzle
Spätzle are a kind of German
dumpling, cooked like pasta. The ones we get here are spelt „Spaetzle“ and called
“noodles”, fighting words in some parts of Germany. I've had two different kinds, both made
by ALB-GOLD of Trochtelfingen and branded
„Bechtle“, but with different cooking times. The first, of which I neglected to take a
photo, are specified to be cooked for 17 minutes, and that seems correct. The ones I have
are called “Bavarian style”, whatever that means (Spätzle come from Schwaben, further west):
