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Today I cooked big rice noodles with chicken in oyster sauce, Thai style. It was very delicious.

I had not fresh, but dried noodles (photo not mine).

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In order to make it right, I needed to first cook the noodles in boiliing water for 2-3 minutes before actually stir-frying it, otherwise it would stay tough. But the instant I poured boiling water over it, all the nice rectangular sheets of noodles curled into noodle straws. How would I prevent that?

Armen Tsirunyan
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    It might be from hydrating on one side only ... I'd try slowly dropping them (from the edge) into the hot water, and see how that behaves – Joe Aug 31 '18 at 19:08
  • @Joe: Instead of dropping the noodles into the boiling water, I actually poured the boiling water ON the noodles, so you might be right. – Armen Tsirunyan Sep 01 '18 at 04:58
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    I would cook those noodles the same way I prepare wrappers for spring rolls - having a large pan of almost boiling water, and slide the noodles gently into the pan. – John Feltz Sep 01 '18 at 16:44

1 Answers1

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I ate those kind of noodles as you showed once many, many years ago and IIRC those noodles taste like dried Pho noodles and have the same texture. To stir-fry your noodles I suggest to soak them in cold or at maximum luke warm water first1 and then stir-fry the softened noodles. Due to pre-soaking, hopefully there should be no uneven hydration and thus, no curling.2 I've seen many people preparing Pho, Hu Tieu or sti-fried Pho that way without any curly noodles.
Depending on how thick your noodles are you might have to blanch the noodles before stir-frying.

1 For 30 minutes? I never paid attention to the time. They don't get mushy if soaked longer.

2 YMMV: Another advantage: You might be able to prepare the noodles beforehand, so no blanching directly before stir-frying or having sticky noodles if not fried immediately.

Ching Chong
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