Written by: Wang Peng
Posted on: August 29, 2018 | | 中文
In a classroom of Lanzhou Beef Noodle Vocational School of Xinglong, Gansu Province of China, the 28-year-old Kazakh boy Takhan was practicing making beef noodles. The process involved kneading the dough, and then stretching the sliced dough into thin noodles skillfully using standard procedure. Within less than half a minute, the white dough became a bowl of beef noodles.
Takhan came to Lanzhou specially to learn how to make beef noodles instead of merely taking a tour. "The Beef Noodle is my favorite. The first time I had it, I even drank the whole bowl of soup after finishing the noodles," said Takhan, a third-year student of Northwest Normal University of China, who is majoring in translation. His had his first soup due to a teacher, who took him to a beef noodle restaurant shortly after he arrived in Lanzhou, capital city of Gansu Province. Since then, he became a loyal fan of the local specialty.
“It seems quite easy when you watch the cooks making it, but it turns out that it is really hard to learn," said Aziz. Only after professional training, the young fellow from Saudi Arabia came to understand that it took several dozens of procedures to make a bowl of noodles with soup before it could be presented to the customers. The procedure includes selecting the right raw materials, cooking the beef bone soup, making and kneading the dough, steaming the dough, and so on. The dough-making itself includes ten more steps with strict secrets of strength, time, use of salt and vegetable oil. Missing any of these steps would influence the quality of the noodles.
Generally, it will take 3 months of practice to grasp the standard procedure of making Beef Noodles according to Zhao Xinmin, a teacher in the school with 40 or more years of experience in the industry.
The foreign students not only learn the art of noodle making, but also gain career-building advice on entrepreneurship and business management. Sun Yanhe, director of teaching department of Lanzhou Beef Noodles Vocational School, informed us that the school offers training and support on the complete chain of the beef noodle industry.
With industrialization and brand-establishment promotion, Lanzhou Beef Noodle has witnessed a steady reputation expansion, domestically and internationally. There are chain restaurants operating in Japan and Korea, and more and more students from foreign countries come to Gansu to learn the skills of noodle making, hoping to introduce it to more lands.
Translated by Wu Jinying
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