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Recipe: ‘Chinese donuts,’ the best dessert you didn’t know existed – Metro US

Recipe: ‘Chinese donuts,’ the best dessert you didn’t know existed

Today I’m going to teach you how to cook youtiao !

Youtiao ( pronounced yo-tee-ow) are also called Chinese doughnuts or fried breadsticks. Although the ingredients are fairly simple (flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, and water), the process is quite time consuming. It can take up to 9 hours, regardless the results are delicious and well worth time.

There’s an interesting story behind the Cantonese word for fried breadsticks or yauhjagwai. It literally means “oil-fried ghost” and refers to two despicable figures from ancient China . H istory has it that Mr. and Mrs. Qin were the most hated couple during the time of the Song Dynasty. Also known as Qin Hui and Lady Wang, these two villains conspired with foreign invaders against China’s greatest general, the legendary Yue Fei .

Shen Yun Performing Arts, the New York-based classical Chinese dance company, included a dance in its program entitled Sweeping Out the Tyrant, based on the tale of an insane monk sweeping the villainous Mr. Qin out of a temple.

“Following their deaths, the couple’s exploits were exposed, and from then on, Mr. and Mrs. Qin have been etched into the Chinese blacklist,” wrote principal dancer Alison Chen on Shen Yun’s blog. “Chinese people have hated the Qins so much, they’ve even made voodoo statues and voodoo snacks in their dishonor.”

So yes, many people today still hate Mr. and Mrs Qin so much that they want to deep fry them, and dunk them into warm sweetened soymilk! Revenge has never been sweeter.

Ingredients:

1 lb of flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/3 teaspoon of baking soda

1/3 teaspoon of sugar

A dash of salt

1 cup of water

Instructions:

1. Put the flour in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour the water into it. Then add the sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix together, and then knead to form dough. Cover the dough for about 30 minutes.

2. Knead the dough until the surface becomes smoother (1 to 2 minutes). Cover the dough again, and this time let it sit for 7 hours.

3. Put the dough on a floured surface. Then roll it to form a long ½ inch thick rectangle about 4 inches wide by 24 inches long. Then cut the rectangular dough into ½ inch strips. Place the strips together in pairs, with one on top of each other. Use the back of your knife to press a line through the center of each pair of strips.

4. Add four cups of oil to a deep skillet. Once the oil is hot, lightly press and stretch the strips to the desired length and gently lower them into the hot oil to deep fry until golden brown and puffy.

You can enjoyyoutiaowith a bowl of hot sweetened soymilk or a savory rice congee.

Comment below to let me know how this recipe worked for you and what other Chinese recipes you would like to learn.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about the 5000 years of classical Chinese culture, you should watch Shen Yun Performing Arts! The company returns to Lincoln Center in New York City from Jan 9th to 18th, 2015. Enjoy!

CiCi Li is the host ofCiCi’s Food ParadiseonNTD Television. Join her for food adventures and discover the endless wonders of Food Paradise. You can stay in touch with her onFacebook.