A jian dui is a ball of glutinous rice flour, deep-fried until the outside goes hard and the inside blows up into a hollow. Most of the ones sold in English-speaking countries are rolled in white sesame before frying, which is why the usual English name is sesame ball. They come to the table hot, … Read more
Congee is rice cooked in far more water than rice normally needs, for far longer than rice normally takes, until the grains break down and the whole thing turns thick and loose at once. In Mandarin it is 粥 zhōu; in much of the southwest and Sichuan it is 稀饭 xīfàn, “thin rice”; in Cantonese … Read more
Douhua 豆花 — also called doufunao 豆腐脑, “tofu brain,” and sold in English as tofu pudding — is tofu caught before it is tofu. Soy milk is set with a coagulant and eaten at the moment it curdles, before any of it is pressed. It is too soft for chopsticks. It comes sweet in some … Read more
Youtiao (油条, yóu tiáo) is a length of wheat dough deep-fried until it puffs hollow, eaten hot at breakfast, usually with soy milk or rice porridge. In English it is called Chinese fried dough, a Chinese cruller, a fried dough stick, or a Chinese donut. The name itself is plain: 油 is oil, 条 is … Read more
Zhajiangmian (炸酱面, also written zha jiang mian) is a Beijing noodle dish: wheat noodles, a soybean paste fried in oil, usually with pork, and a handful of raw, sliced vegetables mixed in at the table. In English it is usually called “fried sauce noodles,” which is a literal reading of the name. The Korean dish … Read more
A shaobing (烧饼) is a baked wheat flatbread from northern China. It comes out of the oven layered inside and firm outside, plain or filled, and very often with sesame seeds pressed onto the top. You can buy one at a street stall for breakfast in most northern cities, split it and put something inside … Read more
Two Chinese words, one English phrase. Search for either tangyuan or yuanxiao and you get “glutinous rice balls”, which is accurate and tells you nothing, because the two words do not name the same thing. The short answer is the one most explanations give, and it is right: tangyuan are wrapped, yuanxiao are rolled. But … Read more
Every year around the Mid-Autumn Festival the same complaint goes around in English: mooncakes are expensive, the boxes are absurd, and the things inside are heavy and dry and nobody really wants to eat them. Every year someone answers that you are missing the point, that it is about family and the moon. Both sides … Read more
Search for this snack in English and you will find it spelled two ways. Some pages call it tanghulu. Others call it bingtanghulu, or bing tang hulu. Nobody explains the difference, and if you go looking for one today you will not find it, because there is no longer any difference to find. There used … Read more
Baozi (包子, bāozi) are steamed buns made from leavened wheat dough wrapped around a filling — pork and cabbage, red bean paste, mushrooms, whatever the shop makes. They are sold by the basket from breakfast stalls and steamer carts across China, eaten in the hand, and they are one of the few Chinese foods that … Read more