Wuchuan Naked-Oat Noodles 武川莜面

Wuchuan Naked-Oat Noodles (武川莜面) are the noodles, rolls, dumplings and other foods made from naked-oat flour in Wuchuan County (武川县), Hohhot (呼和浩特), Inner Mongolia. The making technique entered the autonomous region's intangible cultural heritage list in 2009, and in 2016 China's quality inspection administration approved Wuchuan Youmian as a geographical indication product.

Where it comes from

Naked oats (莜麦, also called 裸燕麦) like cool weather and tolerate drought. Wuchuan lies on the northern side of the Yin Mountains (阴山), with long hours of sunshine, a wide gap between day and night temperatures and concentrated rainfall, and the crop is widely grown there. The area is known locally as Houshan (后山, "behind the mountains"), and a local saying runs: "Inner Mongolia's youmian, Houshan is best; Houshan's youmian, Wuchuan is best."

How it is made

Cooks follow the rule of "three cookings" (三熟): the oats are roasted before they are ground into flour, the dough is mixed with boiling water, and the shaped pieces are steamed for seven to eight minutes. The flour is fairly white and the texture firm and springy. Dough is rubbed, pushed, rolled out or rolled up into more than 40 kinds of food, steamed, deep-fried, boiled, griddled or stir-fried; the steamed kinds alone number close to 20.

How it is eaten

For wowo (窝窝), the dough is pushed across a marble slab or tile and curled into thin honeycomb-like tubes that stand upright in the steamer; they take up hot or cold dipping broth quickly. In summer they go with liangpi-style cold noodles (酿皮), in winter with a steaming stew (烩菜). Yuyu (鱼鱼) are rubbed into strands, once on the thigh and now on the palm, and eaten with cold or hot broth or stir-fried. Jiaojiao (饺饺) are dumplings of oat dough filled with shredded potato, steamed or griddled. The Wuchuan County government notes that youmian restaurants line the streets of Kezhen (可镇), the town that houses the county government.