Ba-wan is a Taiwanese

Taiwanese cuisine

Taiwanese cuisine has several variations. In addition to the following representative dishes from the people of Hoklo ethnicity , there are also Aboriginal, Hakka, and local derivatives of Chinese cuisines .Taiwanese cuisine itself is often associated with influences from mid to southern...

 snack food

Snack food

A snack is a portion of food oftentimes smaller than that of a regular meal, that is generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged and processed foods and items made from fresh ingredients at home....

, consisting of a 6-8 cm diameter disk-shaped translucent dough filled with a savory stuffing and served with a sweet and savory sauce. The stuffing varies widely according to different regions in Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, but usually consists of a mixture of pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

, bamboo shoots

Bamboo Shoots

Bamboo Shoots is an American four-piece musical group based out of Brooklyn, New York and suburban New Jersey. They are known for their dueling, two-person rhythm section and their South Asian identity and influence...

, and shiitake

Shiitake

The Shiitake is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is cultivated and consumed in many Asian countries, as well as being dried and exported to many countries around the world. It is a feature of many Asian cuisines including Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai...

 mushrooms. Changhua-style ba-wan is considered to be the "standard" ba-wan as it is the most famous and most widely imitated of all styles of ba-wan.

The term "ba-wan" is a non-standard romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

 of the Taiwanese pronunciation of "肉圓", as well as "肉丸" (in Mandarin

Standard Mandarin

Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

, roù wán; "meat pill/lump/knot"). In Lukang, ba-wan are known as "bah-hôe" (肉回; roù huí; lit. "meat returns") because they take on a block-like shape as embodied in the shape of 回.

The gelatinous dough is made of a combination of corn starch, sweet potato

Sweet potato

The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...

 starch, and rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

, which gives it its chewy, sticky, and gelatinous texture and a greyish translucent hue

Hue

Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...

. Ba-wan are initially cooked by steaming; however, they may also be served after being deep fried

Deep frying

Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot oil or fat. This is normally performed with a deep fryer or chip pan; industrially, a pressure fryer or vacuum fryer may be used....

 to give them a "skin" or gently poach

Poaching (cooking)

Poaching is the process of gently simmering food in liquid, generally milk, stock or wine.-Utilization:Poaching is particularly suitable for delicate food, such as eggs, poultry, fish and fruit, which might easily fall apart or dry out...

ed in oil to heat them without drying them out.

History

It is believed that ba-wan were first prepared in the Beidou

Beidou, Changhua

Beidou Township is a town in Changhua County, Taiwan. It is famous for ba-wan, a popular Taiwanese food item that was invented in the township. It is located in an alluvial plain in the southeast part of the county....

 township of Taiwan by a student by the name Fàn Wànjū (范萬居) as food for disaster relief during the late Qing dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

(1644 – 1912), when the Beidou region was struck by heavy floods. Since then, ba-wan had spread to different regions of Taiwan and is now considered by many as a national food.