Long golden-brown twins of deep-fried dough, airy and hollow inside with a crackly crust. The cornerstone of a Chinese breakfast, torn and dunked into soy milk or congee.
Youtiao (literally 'oil strip') is a long deep-fried strip of wheat dough eaten at breakfast as an accompaniment to congee, soy milk, or sweetened milk.
It crackles when you tear it, then collapses into a chewy, airy interior laced with hollow tunnels. On its own it is faintly salty and almost flavorless, but dragged through warm soy milk it goes soft and slippery. Breakfast in a single golden stick.
The overnight rest and twin alkaline leaveners (baking soda plus ammonia) generate gas rapidly in very hot oil, blasting the dough open into a hollow, lacy structure. Pressing two strips together forces them to puff against each other and stay joined as they expand.
Variations
Wrapped in cheung fun (zhaliang), stuffed into shaobing, sweet sugar-coated versions
On the Palate
Where Youtiao sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 20 min
- 18 min
Mix flour with baking soda, baking ammonia and salt, then knead in water to a soft dough.
- 2480 min
Rest the dough covered overnight in the refrigerator to relax the gluten.
Watch outThe overnight cold rest is what lets the dough stretch thin without snapping back — skip it and the sticks won't puff.
- 34 min
Roll the dough into a long rectangle about one centimeter thick.
- 45 min
Cut into strips, stack two together, and press a chopstick down the middle to bind them.
- 54 min
Heat oil to 200C until very hot.
Watch outThe oil must be fiercely hot — a scrap of dough should bob up and sizzle at once; too cool and the sticks sink and stay dense and greasy.
- 63 min
Gently stretch each pair and lower into the oil, turning constantly.
Watch outTurn constantly from the moment they go in — the nonstop rolling is what makes them balloon evenly hollow instead of one fat lopsided side.
- 76 min
Fry until puffed, hollow and deep golden, then drain on a rack.
