Youtiao / Dough Stick

I recently reminisced about the wonderful soybean milk and dough sticks we enjoyed in the Yonghe section of Taipei back in the last 1970s.  Although normally considered a breakfast meal, the doujiang shops in Yonghe were open until quite late, and sometimes we’d walk across the bridge from the center of Taipei late at night to get a bowl of soybean milk, with either sugar or salt added, and sip it while dipping our dough sticks into the hot milk. Often we would also order a shaobing, a kind of baked flat bread, which we would wrap around the dough sticks. It was such a treat.  

Dough sticks are also sometimes cut into small pieces and put on the top of a bowl of porridge. Kong Yiji, one of our favorite restaurants in Beijing, which sat on the bank of the Rear Lake, served stir-fried youtiao with beef. 

I was keen to enjoy this again and so researched a number of different recipes for dough sticks, or youtiao (油條), and shaobing (燒餅), until I found the perfect ones. Youtiao is two long sticks of dough made of flour and water leavened with baking soda and baking powder. The two pieces are then stuck together and dipped into hot oil at a medium temperature until they puff up and turn a golden brown. 

Here is the recipe for youtiao:

250 g all-purpose flour

6 g baking powder

3 g baking soda

10 g oil

165 g cold water

1. Mix well and knead the dough.  Cover the dough in saran wrap overnight or a bit longer. 

2. Take the dough out and leave it at room temperature. Roll out into a rectangle and cut into wide strips about an inch in width. Wet your chopstick and slide it across the middle of each strip to create a wedge. Put another strip on top, and then press it down with your chopstick.

3. Heat oil to a medium temperature (190 to 210 degrees).  Stretch the double stacked dough to fit your frying pan. Deep fry until the sticks  puff up and keep turning so that the youtiao are evenly cooked to a golden brown.
   

While researching recipes, I decided to look into the story behind this popular snack.  I discovered one legend that explained the original name of this food was you zha Hui (油炸檜), Oil Fried Hui, a reference to Qin Hui, a wicked minister of the Song Dynasty.  Qin Hui and his wife cooked up the Eastern Window Conspiracy to eliminate Gen. Yue Fei, a well respected general known for his loyalty, integrity, and intelligence while defending the kingdom against the Jurchen. 

The wrongful death of Yue Fei sparked the anger of the people. Wang Xiaoer, a shaobing vendor in the town of Lin An, today’s Hangzhou, is said to have been so grieved that he made male and female faces out of his dough, pressed them together back to back, and then cooked them in oil.  “Hurry everyone, oil fried Hui!” shouted  Wang, while deep-frying “the couple.”

People were so gleeful eating the “Hui couple” that  Wang could not fry this snack fast enough to meet demand. To speed up the making of oil fried Hui, the vendor began to fry faceless figures, which is how youtiao look today. 

This is the lesson to be taken from this story:

I adjure you, sir, not to be a sycophant

No wicked and evil person escapes the gates of hell

Deep-fried Hui is eaten everywhere

You have been fried in hot burning oil before you die

劝君切莫做佞人 yóu zhá guì quàn jūn qiè mò zuò nìng rén 

奸恶谁逃地狱门 jiān è shuí táo dìyù mén 

民间遍食油炸桧 mínjiān biàn shí yóu zhá guì 

未死已遭油火焚 wèi sǐ yǐ zāo yóu huǒ fén

Here is the baked bread (shaobing 燒餅) recipe:

Outer dough:

479 g all-purpose flour

10 g salt

100  ml hot water

20 ml vegetable oil

200 ml cold water 

Pour hot water into the flour, salt, oil mixture, and stir it with a spatula.  

Add the cold water, and knead the dough with your hands turning it into a smooth ball of dough. Cover with a damp cloth and then set aside.

Innner dough called suyou 酥油:

80 ml oil

160 g all purpose flour

1. Pour oil into a skillet, saute the flour until it’s a light brown and then set aside to cool.
   
   2. Roll the outer dough into a flat rectangular shape. Spread the inner dough covering the whole rectangular surface. Roll it up into a log. Divide the log into about 2-inch pieces.
   
   3. Flatten each piece into a rectangular shape, fold the rectangular sheet like folding a letter, flatten it again, and fold it again like a letter.  Flatten it again just before baking it at 375 degrees. Flip the baked bread once it puffs up, so both sides are golden brown.