馓子饊子
sǎn zi saan2 zi2
Crisp golden coils of fried dough, sanzi are the survivor of the old Cold Food Festival, when lighting a fire was forbidden for days — so everything had to be fried crunchy in advance. Su Dongpo even wrote a little poem about them — slender hands twisting jade-pale dough into rings like gold bracelets on a beauty’s arm.
The story behind it
The Cold Food Festival (寒食节) mourned Jie Zitui, a loyal retainer who retired to a mountain rather than claim his reward — and died when his remorseful lord set the forest alight to force him out; for centuries the festival merged into Qingming the following day. Sanzi — called 寒具, “cold-food gear”, in old texts — kept families fed while every hearth in the land stayed cold. Today Uyghur, Hui and Han versions all coil their own shapes.
Ingredients
- 300 g flour
- 150 ml warm water + 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp oil for the dough, plus plenty for frying
- Optional: 1 tsp sesame seeds
Steps
- Knead a smooth, soft dough; rest it 30 minutes under oil so it relaxes.
- Roll into long thin ropes; coil the ropes and rest again.
- Stretch each coil thinner, loop it over two chopsticks like a skein of yarn.
- Fry the loops at 170 °C, twisting once, until golden and shatteringly crisp.