Yudu Fried Rice-Flour Crisps 于都烧卷子

How it is made

Garlic, chilli and pickled greens, either suancai (酸菜) or daocai (道菜), are washed and chopped as fine as possible. Rice flour is mixed with water, the chopped vegetables are worked in with salt, and some makers add sesame. The dough is shaped into long bars sized to the steamer and steamed until a chopstick pushed into it comes out clean.

Once cooled, the bars are cut into thin slices and fried in oil until they turn golden. They are eaten once cool or packed. Slices made in surplus can be sun-dried and stored, then fried when wanted.

Flavour and texture

The Yudu county government describes the finished slices as shaped like a cicada's wing, golden and translucent, fragrant and crisp in the mouth, with a taste that is savoury and hot but also sour and sweet.

Where it comes from

The snack began with the She (畲族) people. A local account holds that a She ancestor of the Lan (蓝) family, serving as a remonstrance official at the Tang court, brought it into the palace, where it pleased Yang Guifei (杨贵妃) and became a tribute item. Hakka families in Yudu later adopted the Lan family's method, adjusting the choice of ingredients and the processing, and it became a Hakka specialty, known collectively as "Kejia guozi" (客家果子, Hakka snacks).

The main producing places are the county seat and the towns of Gongjiang (贡江镇), Zishan (梓山镇) and Luo'ao (罗坳镇). In 2022 the Yudu She technique for making the snack was added to Ganzhou's sixth list of municipal intangible cultural heritage items.