You must have tried this "strongest peripheral" of "Man Jiang Hong"!

This year's Spring Festival movie "Man Jiang Hong" was a big hit. It is said that after watching the movie, some netizens sighed: In fact, "Man Jiang Hong" also has movie peripherals (products), and this peripheral has been sold for hundreds or thousands of years... Hey, "Man Jiang Hong" really has movie peripherals, why haven't I heard of it?

After knowing the answer, you will definitely burst out laughing. Because the "Man Jiang Hong peripherals" mentioned by this netizen are actually a common food - fried dough sticks !

It is said that the people were very angry when they heard the news that the treacherous minister Qin Hui and his wife Wang framed the loyal minister Yue Fei to death. So a breakfast vendor came up with an idea: use dough to make the images of Qin Hui and Wang, and let them "fry in oil", and named it "fried cypress" . Hearing about this, people rushed to buy it, and found that it tasted quite good, so it became popular. Later, this food became popular all over the country as the vendors moved around, and became one of the favorite breakfasts of the Chinese.

01

Why do we fry two dough sticks together?

Youtiao is usually made from fermented dough or dough with leavening agents added and deep-fried. If you have ever eaten freshly fried dough sticks at breakfast stalls, you must be very familiar with the following process: Before frying the dough sticks, the chef will stack two slightly wider noodles together. Then the chef will press the middle of the noodles with chopsticks, then stretch them to the appropriate length and gently put them into the oil pan. After the noodles float up, they will be frequently rolled with long chopsticks to heat the dough sticks evenly. During this process, the dough sticks will expand rapidly and finally become the fluffy big dough sticks we eat.

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The first thing many people do when they get the dough sticks is to separate the two. Have you ever wondered why you got two when you clearly asked for one? When I asked this question as a child, the adults told me that this was Qin Hui and his wife Wang, who were criminals and should be tied together and fried. But if I think about it carefully, it doesn't seem right: Qin Hui must be the main culprit for the unjust killing of Yue Fei, so it should be enough to fry one; if you count the others, there are also four "white iron innocent cast flatterers", so all four should be fried together... In fact, this special shape of the dough stick contains a scientific problem: if you don't pinch the two together, you can't fry them.

The reason is that the oil temperature for frying dough sticks is very high. If there is only one dough stick, the high temperature will quickly shape the contact surface and affect its expansion . However, if two dough sticks are stuck together, the contact area will not directly contact the hot oil and can continue to expand, which makes the dough stick fluffy and soft, and very crispy and delicious when you bite it.

02

How to eat fried dough sticks

Youtiao can not only be eaten directly, but there are many other ways to eat it.

1. Eat with Dip

The most classic and popular way is to pair it with soy milk. The fluffy dough sticks are soaked with soy milk and stuffed into the mouth in a big mouthful. The slightly salty dough sticks and the slightly sweet soy milk form a wonderful taste combination that makes people unable to stop eating. In addition to soy milk, tofu pudding is also a classic CP of fried dough sticks. People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions also dip fried dough sticks in soy sauce and pair them with white porridge, which is also a good breakfast.

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2. Wrap and eat

In addition to eating it alone, the way of eating youtiao wrapped in other things is also widely spread. For example, the traditional food of Tianjin, Jianbing Baozi. Most of the pancakes in other places are wrapped with thin crisps (called Baobi in Tianjin). I also like to put thin crisps in the pancakes. The crispy texture and rich sauce flavor wrapped in the pancake with rich grain aroma are the tastes that I often crave in the morning. But most of the Tianjin people around me like to put Baozi in the pancakes. They think this is the real Jianbing Baozi.

Rice balls are a favorite breakfast snack for many Shanghainese. People use glutinous rice, sprinkle with sugar or other seasonings such as snow vegetables, and then wrap with fried dough sticks. Those who are more particular will ask for the fried dough sticks that are more crispy, then roll it into a round ball and eat it warm in your hands. After eating, you will feel full in your stomach and you will not feel hungry for a long time. Compared with the round rice balls, I prefer the long ones because they are more convenient to eat.

For Chinese people who are good at creating delicious food, there are so many ways to eat fried dough sticks. Fried dough sticks stuffed with shrimp, fried dough sticks stuffed with meat, fried dough sticks stuffed with eggs, fried dough stick soup, fried dough stick salad... As long as you are brave enough, you can eat fried dough sticks all over the world!

03

Fried dough elsewhere in the world

Fried dough is a combination of carbohydrates and fats that is hardwired into our DNA. People all over the world have their own favorite local fried dough foods. Everyone eats them for breakfast or as a delicious treat at the market. Let's take a look at a few typical ones.

1. Churros

In Madrid, the traditional capital of Spain, churros, a long fried dough strip, is a classic breakfast item for people. When dipped in chocolate sauce, it becomes a dessert snack that people love for the afternoon and midnight snack.

It is generally believed that churros are a simple breakfast invented by mountain shepherds. The dough is made of salt, water, and flour, and then fried in a frying pan to become long strips as thick as fingers. They are eaten while hot, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Locals sprinkle some sugar on them or dip them in coffee. Doesn't it sound similar to our fried dough sticks dipped in soy milk? After all, coffee can be said to be a kind of "soy milk" in a sense.

2. American Donuts

Americans invented donuts. Everyone must have eaten them. They are a kind of dough with a hole in the middle. The plainer ones are sprinkled with powdered sugar. The donuts that often appear in American TV series or American comics are covered with colorful icing or chocolate, which looks very tempting. Now there are some donut chains in many countries, which makes donuts very well-known.

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3. Dutch fried dough (Oliebollen)

The name of the Dutch fried dough is very straightforward, "oil balls", and you know what it is as soon as you hear it. When I ate it for the first time, the Dutch lied to me, saying that donuts were originally cakes, and in order to make them into the current ring shape, a hole was dug in the middle, and the dough dug out could not be wasted, so it was made into this kind of oil ball. This kind of fried dough tastes really similar to fried dough sticks, which evoked the homesickness of the young me who was far away from home. Simple fried dough with icing sugar on the surface is the basic version. The classic oil ball dough is mixed with raisins, which will make the eating experience richer. Now there are also jams filled in it.

References:

[1]https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20220520A0AKHL00Beignets

[2] https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7179/beignets/ Canadian Bannock

Originated from Scotland, but became a staple food in North America.

[3]https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/bannock-bread/

[4]https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bannock

Author: FOODHACK Yuzi, Master of Food Science from University of New South Wales, Scientific Advisor of A Bite of China

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