Yue Fei
Yau Char Kwai
Yau Char Kwai
My late grandmother used to make very hard Yau Char Kwai. This is the long, golden-brown, deep fried strip of dough in Chinese cuisine which is usually eaten for breakfast with porridge or coffee. Surprisingly, this delicacy is linked to one of the most beloved Chinese hero, Yue Fei (1103 - 1141) who came from Tangyin in Xiangzhou in today's Henan Province in China. Yue Fei was a great Song Dynasty general, famous for wars against the Jin Dynasty . His troops continuously won wars against the Jins and his successes breed envies to the Song Dynasty Prime Minister, Qin Kuai who with his wife hatched an evil plot to have the general murdered in a jail when he was just 39. After his death, a pastry vendor kneaded a piece of dough into two human shapes, standing for Qin Hui and his wife. He then twisted them together and put them into the boiling hot oil in his cauldron and viola! We had Yau Char Kwai or You Tiao in China and all over Asia!
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