Vermicelli

Ingredients

• 2–3 fresh eggs
• flour

Method

Beat the eggs until they hold soft peaks — you're incorporating air that will lighten the dough and create the fragile structure vermicelli needs. Add flour gradually, mixing until the paste turns stiff enough to knead; this ratio matters because too much flour gives you a brittle, cracking dough-making that won't hold together when dried, while too little leaves it tacky and prone to tearing.

Knead the dough hard for five to ten minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. You're developing gluten strands that give the paste tensile strength without making it tough — the eggs provide fat and lecithin, which soften what would otherwise be a rigid network. The paste should feel silky, never grainy. This is the foundation; a slack or underworked dough will snap when you roll and cut it.

Roll the dough as thin as you can manage — almost translucent — using a pin or your hands. Thin dough dries faster and more evenly, preventing the surface from case-hardening before the inside releases its moisture. Once thin, use a sharp knife to cut it into narrow strips, roughly 2–3 millimetres wide. This is where the twist comes in: take each strip and give it a half-turn as you lay it on a tin sheet. The knife-skills twist serves two functions — it increases surface area for faster drying, and it prevents strips from fusing together as they lose moisture.

Dry the strips quickly on unlined tin sheets at room temperature, away from direct sun but in a warm, dry space. You want them to lose their moisture in eight to twenty-four hours depending on ambient humidity — the goal is a brittle, glass-like texture, not leathery or flexible. Turn them halfway through if they're not drying evenly. They're ready when they snap cleanly and show no moisture when bent.

Use these in thin broths or consommés, where they'll hydrate quickly and contribute a subtle egg richness to the liquid. They're not meant for heavier soups — they dissolve and lose their structure in prolonged cooking.