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Guiyang si wa wa
Sī wáwa (丝娃娃): 'silk babies', tiny pancakes rolled round shredded vegetables and filled with sour broth
Guiyang's favourite street snack is a do-it-yourself meal: stalls set out twenty or more small bowls of shredded vegetables, and each person wraps a few strands in a pancake no bigger than a palm, folds it like a swaddled baby and pours in a spoonful of sour, chilli-flecked broth. It's light, crunchy and fun to eat with friends. Use as many fillings as you like; the more colours, the better. Chef's tip: shred everything as fine as you can, so the little parcels stay neat and each mouthful has several flavours.
- Total time
- 55 min
- Difficulty
- medium
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
For the pancakes
For the fillings
For the sour broth
Method
0/7 doneStep 1: Mix 5 ½ oz plain flour with ½ cup just-boiled water using chopsticks, then knead into a smooth, soft dough. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.
20 minStep 2: Roll into a log and cut into 24 pieces. Flatten two pieces, brush one with 1 tbsp vegetable oil, stack them and roll the pair out to a 10 cm round. Repeat with the rest.
Step 3: Cook each pair in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for 30–40 seconds a side, until bubbles appear and there are faint pale-brown spots. Peel the two layers apart while warm and keep them under a cloth.
12 minStep 4: Common mistake: cooking the pancakes until crisp. They should stay soft and floppy enough to fold.
Step 5: Toast 1 tbsp dried chilli flakes, toasted in a dry pan for 30 seconds until they darken and smell smoky. Warm 1 ¼ cups vegetable stock and stir in 3 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp light soy sauce, the chilli, 2 cloves garlic, 1 spring onion, 1 small handful fresh coriander and 1 tsp toasted sesame oil. Divide into small bowls.
2 minStep 6: Set out 1 carrot, 1 cucumber, 3 ½ oz white radish (mooli), 3 ½ oz beansprouts, 2 ⅛ oz kelp (seaweed) strips, 1 potato, 1 ¾ oz thin rice noodles, 4 tbsp pickled mustard greens and 3 tbsp fried soybeans or peanuts in separate dishes.
Step 7: To eat, lay a pancake in your palm, add a pinch of 3–4 fillings, fold the bottom up and the sides in to make an open cone, then spoon in a little broth and eat it in one or two bites.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 260 kcal
- Protein
- 9 g
- Carbs
- 46 g
- Fat
- 5 g
- Fibre
- 6 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does guiyang si wa wa take?
- About 55 minutes in total: 40 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 4 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegan?
- Yes. It has no meat, fish, dairy or eggs.
- What can I use instead of plain flour?
- Self-raising flour, same amount (then leave out the baking powder).
- What can I use instead of carrot?
- Parsnip or sweet potato, same weight.
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