Popiah
Encyclopedia
Popiah is a Fujian
/Chaozhou-style fresh spring roll
common in Taiwan
, Singapore
, and Malaysia. Popiah is often eaten in the Fujian
province of China
(usually in Xiamen
) and its neighbouring Chaoshan
on the Qingming Festival
. In the Teochew (Chaozhou) dialect, popiah is pronounced as "Bo-BEE-a"(薄餅仔), which means "thin wafer". In variants of the Hokkien dialect, it is also commonly referred to as "lun-BEE-a"(潤餅仔). It is sometimes referred to as runbing (潤餅) or baobing (薄饼) in Mandarin
, and also as bópíjuǎn (薄皮卷).
: chhat jūn-piáⁿ phê, lit. "to rub a lumpia crepe") against a hot steel plate in a circular fashion, and lifted. Through this process, a very thin layer of the wet dough adheres to the plate and begins to cook. The upper surface of the crepe is then usually cleaned of excess pieces of dough using the dough ball through a dabbing process. When the dough has been cooked to completion, it is peeled off of the hot steel plate before being removed. The rubbing is typically done over two or three plates at once, which allows the baker to continuously produce crepes and gives the proper time for each crepe to be properly cooked.
It is eaten in accompaniment with a sweet sauce (often a bean sauce, a blended soy sauce
or hoisin sauce
or a shrimp paste
sauce (hae-ko), and optionally with hot chilli sauce before it is filled. The filling is mainly finely grated and steamed or stir-fried turnip
, jicama
(known locally as bangkuang), which has been cooked with a combination of other ingredients such as bean sprouts, French bean
s, and lettuce leaves
, depending on the individual vendor, along with grated carrots
, slices of Chinese sausage
, thinly sliced fried tofu
, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded omelette
. Other common variations of popiah include include pork (lightly seasoned and stir-fried), shrimp or crab meat. Seaweed is often included in the Xiamen versions. Some hawkers in Malaysia and Singapore, especially in non-halal
settings, will add fried pork lard. As a fresh spring roll, the popiah skin itself is not fried.
The fried version is very commonly served year-round in Chinese restaurants. It is small, crispy and rolled with meat or sweet red bean paste.
The non-fried version is much more complicated and is called runbing (潤餅) in Mandarin (still po̍h-piáⁿ (薄餅) in Taiwanese).
There are two kinds of skins which roll the stuffing: one that is slowly heated until cooked is famous for being very thin; the other is baked. Furthermore, the way of cooking the stuffing is very different as well. In northern Taiwan, the stuffing is flavored, stir-fired, sometimes it goes with peanut powder, and the sauce is salty. In southern Taiwan, the popiah stuffing is water blanched without additional seasoning, and flavoured primarily with sugar and peanut powder. For people who live in southern Taiwan, the addition of sufficient sugar is key for popiah. Moreover, some people like to heat or steam the spring roll again after it is made.
The stuffing itself is quite diverse among different places. The basic stuffing includes vegetables that grow in spring, meat and thinly shredded omelet. In some places, they also add noodles, Chinese sausages, stewed vegetables instead of blanched ones, tofu, seafood, sticky rice, and so on.
s. In Vietnam, bò bía is the Vietnamese variant of popiah, introduced by Teochew
immigrants. It is common to see an old Teochew man or woman selling bò bía at their roadside stand.
Fujian cuisine
Fujian cuisine is one of the native Chinese cuisines derived from the native cooking style of the province of Fujian, China. Fujian style cuisine is known to be light but flavourful, soft, and tender, with particular emphasis on umami taste, known in Chinese cooking as "xiānwèi" , as well as...
/Chaozhou-style fresh spring roll
Spring roll
Spring rolls is an umbrella term used in some Western cultures to describe disparate varieties of filled, rolled appetizers similar to the Chinese chūn juǎn , from which the term was derived...
common 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...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, and Malaysia. Popiah is often eaten in the Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
province of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(usually in Xiamen
Xiamen
Xiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...
) and its neighbouring Chaoshan
Chaoshan
Cháoshàn refers to the linguistic and cultural region in the east of Guangdong, a southeastern province of China. This region is the origin of the Min Nan dialect Teochew. The area is known as Teochew for most people overseas, although it also consists of the cities of Shantou and Jieyang...
on the Qingming Festival
Qingming Festival
The Qingming Festival , Pure Brightness Festival or Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice , usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar...
. In the Teochew (Chaozhou) dialect, popiah is pronounced as "Bo-BEE-a"(薄餅仔), which means "thin wafer". In variants of the Hokkien dialect, it is also commonly referred to as "lun-BEE-a"(潤餅仔). It is sometimes referred to as runbing (潤餅) or baobing (薄饼) 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....
, and also as bópíjuǎn (薄皮卷).
Wrapper and fillings
A popiah "skin" (薄餅皮) is a soft, thin paper-like crepe or pancake made from wheat flour. The method of producing the wrapper involves making an extremely wet and viscous dough. A ball of this dough is held to the right hand, then quickly "rubbed" (擦潤餅皮, HokkienHokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
: chhat jūn-piáⁿ phê, lit. "to rub a lumpia crepe") against a hot steel plate in a circular fashion, and lifted. Through this process, a very thin layer of the wet dough adheres to the plate and begins to cook. The upper surface of the crepe is then usually cleaned of excess pieces of dough using the dough ball through a dabbing process. When the dough has been cooked to completion, it is peeled off of the hot steel plate before being removed. The rubbing is typically done over two or three plates at once, which allows the baker to continuously produce crepes and gives the proper time for each crepe to be properly cooked.
It is eaten in accompaniment with a sweet sauce (often a bean sauce, a blended soy sauce
Soy sauce
Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae molds, along with water and salt...
or hoisin sauce
Hoisin sauce
Hoisin sauce, or haixian sauce, is a Chinese dipping sauce. The word hoisin is a romanization of the Chinese word for seafood "" as pronounced in Cantonese.-Ingredients:...
or a shrimp paste
Shrimp paste
Shrimp paste or shrimp sauce, is a common ingredient used in Southeast Asian and Southern Chinese cuisine. It is known as terasi in Indonesian, ngapi in Burmese, kapi in Thai, Khmer and Lao language, belacan in Malay, mắm ruốc, mắm tép and mắm tôm in...
sauce (hae-ko), and optionally with hot chilli sauce before it is filled. The filling is mainly finely grated and steamed or stir-fried turnip
Turnip
The turnip or white turnip is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, bulbous taproot. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties are grown as feed for livestock...
, jicama
Jícama
Pachyrhizus erosus, commonly known as Jícama , Yam, and Mexican Turnip, is the name of a native Mexican vine, although the name most commonly refers to the plant's edible tuberous root. Jícama is one species in the genus Pachyrhizus. Plants in this genus are commonly referred to as yam bean,...
(known locally as bangkuang), which has been cooked with a combination of other ingredients such as bean sprouts, French bean
French Bean
Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 British comedy film by Rowan Atkinson, which was released in the United Kingdom and Australia on 24 March 2007 and on 24 August 2007 in the United States and Canada. It is the second film based on the television series Mr...
s, and lettuce leaves
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
, depending on the individual vendor, along with grated carrots
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
, slices of Chinese sausage
Chinese sausage
Chinese sausage is a generic term referring to the many different types of sausages originating in China. It is commonly known by its Cantonese name "Lap Cheong" or "Lap Chong" .-Varieties:...
, thinly sliced fried tofu
Tofu
is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...
, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded omelette
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
. Other common variations of popiah include include pork (lightly seasoned and stir-fried), shrimp or crab meat. Seaweed is often included in the Xiamen versions. Some hawkers in Malaysia and Singapore, especially in non-halal
Halal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
settings, will add fried pork lard. As a fresh spring roll, the popiah skin itself is not fried.
Types
In mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan there are "popiah parties" at home, where the ingredients are laid out and guests make their own popiah with proportions of ingredients to their own personal liking.Taiwanese
In Taiwan, popiah are eaten in several varieties. They can be classified into fried and non-fried versions.The fried version is very commonly served year-round in Chinese restaurants. It is small, crispy and rolled with meat or sweet red bean paste.
The non-fried version is much more complicated and is called runbing (潤餅) in Mandarin (still po̍h-piáⁿ (薄餅) in Taiwanese).
There are two kinds of skins which roll the stuffing: one that is slowly heated until cooked is famous for being very thin; the other is baked. Furthermore, the way of cooking the stuffing is very different as well. In northern Taiwan, the stuffing is flavored, stir-fired, sometimes it goes with peanut powder, and the sauce is salty. In southern Taiwan, the popiah stuffing is water blanched without additional seasoning, and flavoured primarily with sugar and peanut powder. For people who live in southern Taiwan, the addition of sufficient sugar is key for popiah. Moreover, some people like to heat or steam the spring roll again after it is made.
The stuffing itself is quite diverse among different places. The basic stuffing includes vegetables that grow in spring, meat and thinly shredded omelet. In some places, they also add noodles, Chinese sausages, stewed vegetables instead of blanched ones, tofu, seafood, sticky rice, and so on.
Other
Similar foods in other cuisines include the Filipino/Indonesian variant referred to as Lumpiang Sariwa, fried spring rollSpring roll
Spring rolls is an umbrella term used in some Western cultures to describe disparate varieties of filled, rolled appetizers similar to the Chinese chūn juǎn , from which the term was derived...
s. In Vietnam, bò bía is the Vietnamese variant of popiah, introduced by Teochew
Teochew people
The Chaozhou people are Han people, native to the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province of China who speak the Teochew dialect. Today, most Teochew people live outside China in Southeast Asia especially in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. They can also be found almost anywhere in the...
immigrants. It is common to see an old Teochew man or woman selling bò bía at their roadside stand.