On Food and Cooking

light, they’re opaque rather than translucent.
Rice noodles are made by soaking high-
amylose rice in water, grinding it into a paste,
cooking the paste so that much but not all of
the starch is gelated, kneading the paste into a
dough and extruding it to form noodles,
steaming the noodles to finish the gelation
process, cooling and holding for 12 hours or
more, and drying with hot air or by frying
them in oil. Again, the holding and drying
cause starch retrogradation and the formation
of a structure that stands up to rehydration in
hot water. Fresh rice noodles, chow fun, need
no rehydration before being stir-fried.
Rice papers, banh trang in Vietnamese, are
thin, parchment-like discs that are used as
wrappers for southeast Asian versions of the
spring roll. They’re made by soaking and
grinding rice, soaking it again, pounding it
into a paste and spreading it into a thin layer,
steaming it and then drying it. Rice papers are
rehydrated briefly in lukewarm water, then