Sachima

Sachima is a transliteration of the Manchu word sacima; the Qing court dictionaries render it in Chinese as tangchan, "sugar-wound." Scholars read the word as built from the verb root saci- (to cut or chop) plus a noun suffix, giving a sense close to "cut cake" — the folk gloss "cut into squares and stacked up" is popular but linguistically shakier. It was a Manchu pastry sold in the bobo shops and used in temple and ancestral offerings. Fucha Dunchong's late-Qing Yanjing Suishi Ji lists it (written sachima): "a Manchu cake, made of fine flour with rock sugar and butter, shaped like glutinous rice, baked... cut into squares, sweet and rich." The Guangxu-era Shuntian Fu Zhi records an early form (saselima) steamed with lard, and an 1848 trade-guild stele confirms its place at Banner weddings and funerals.

A soft golden block, riddled with the gaps left by the fried noodle strands, glossy where the syrup caught. It gives at once — no chew, no resistance — and turns sweet and tender, dissolving with a faint warmth of honey and butter. The old style is denser and more aromatic, studded with chewy raisins and the slight crunch of melon seeds and sesame; the syrup carries it without ever turning hard.

The dough is bound almost entirely with egg — flour and beaten egg with barely any water — so the strands fry up airy and crisp rather than dense. It is rolled thin, cut into fine noodles, dusted with starch, and deep-fried at around 150°C until pale gold and hollow. Meanwhile sugar, maltose and a little water (often with honey) are boiled to roughly 115°C, to the stage where they pull a thread and hold a dense foam — too cool and it won't bind, too hot and it sets brittle. The fried strands are folded into the hot syrup, pressed firmly into an oiled frame, topped, and cut into squares once cool. Older recipes leaned on butter, osmanthus and honey for that fuller fragrance.