Tianshui Cold Noodle Sheets 天水面皮
Tianshui Cold Noodle Sheets is featured among the local specialties of Gansu.
Tianshui Cold Noodle Sheets (天水面皮), also called niangpi (酿皮), are steamed wheat-flour sheets cut into strips and dressed with chilli oil and sesame paste, and the Qinzhou District (秦州区) government lists them among the best-known snacks of Tianshui (天水).
How it is made
Tianshui makes the sheets in two ways. In the simpler one, wheat flour is mixed with twice its weight of water into a thick batter, thinned with more water and seasoned with a little edible alkali and salt; it is ready when it trails from a ladle in a thread. The batter is spread thin in a steaming tray called a mianpi luo (面皮箩), steamed over boiling water for three to four minutes, cooled in a basin of cold water and turned out. Each sheet is brushed with cooked rapeseed oil so the stack does not stick. Some places call this whole-flour version gaodan mianpi (高担面皮).
The more careful method, which Tianshui people call ximianpi (洗面皮, "washed sheets"), kneads flour and cold water into a hard dough and rubs it repeatedly in clean water until the starch separates from the protein, leaving a ball of gluten (面筋). The starch settles, the water is poured off, alkali goes in and the batter is steamed the same way. The gluten is steamed separately, sliced thin and added to the bowl.
Flavour and texture
The sheets are yellow, glossy and translucent, soft and smooth. More than ten seasonings go on: chilli oil, sesame paste, crushed garlic, mustard, salt, vinegar and soy sauce, then a few gluten slices and a pinch of blanched mung-bean sprouts or spinach.
The Qinzhou district government singles out the vinegar. Sheet noodles across the northwest are dressed with plenty of vinegar, but the Tianshui version plays up chilli and fragrance, and only a faint sourness comes through. The dressing soaks right into the strips, so the bowl is left with no liquid, where versions elsewhere leave a vinegary pool.
How it is eaten
In Tianshui's town and countryside it is eaten as a staple or as a side dish, cold or warm and in any season. It is set out for visiting friends and guests, and at banquets it leads the cold platters. Stalls line the streets and lanes, most densely in the urban districts, and local women and children are described as especially fond of it. The district government also notes that it is no longer the mainstream snack it was and calls for the craft to be protected.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.