Mian bao

[shinju]

Please help me understand mian bao. According to C Trang of "Noodles Every Day" it is linguine like Chinese egg noodle. However, when I google I get some bun types showing up. Which is it?Thank you!

[mbhank]

"bao" is bun in Chinese. Therefore your mian bao is probably a steamed bun with a stuffing of some kind.

[shinju]

Can you also provide Chinese character for the bao part? Thanks.

[heidih]

Could it be a strange crossover in that bun I believe is Vietnamese for noodle and she is Vietnamese and it got transposed to bao????? Were you cooking that dish from her book or something else altogether?

[liuzhou]

Mian bao 面包 is bread, usually in the form of a bun.

The confusion is probably because mian (面) means wheat but is also used as an abbreviation for mian tiao 面条 meaning (wheat) noodles.

[shinju]

Thank you for these explanations. Is there a Chinese name for the flat, linguine type egg and wheat noodle? I'm beginning to feel that there are several mistakes in her book. For example her use of the word la mian. Now I'm beginning to wonder if la mian is used for both egg/wheat and all wheat noodle. She uses the term to describe the egg noodle.

[liuzhou]

Egg noodles aren't actually that common in mainland China.

 

La mian (拉面) means "pulled noodles" referring to the way the chefs skilfully pull and stretch the noodle dough until it breaks into strands. In my experience it never includes egg.

 

YouTube has many videos showing the process.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=la+mian&aq=f

 

It is also the origin of the Japanese word "Ramen" although the two have long parted company in terms of what the dishes really are.

 

Sadly, totally misconstrued concepts are common in cookbooks by people who never actually visited the places they are talking about, or if they did, spent two weeks in the tourist areas.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[Fengyi]

Egg noodles aren't actually that common in mainland China.

[snip interesting bit about lamian]

Sadly, totally misconstrued concepts are common in cookbooks by people who never actually visited the places they are talking about, or if they did, spent two weeks in the tourist areas.

Yes - I cannot find any egg noodles - not that they're my favourite, but sometimes it's nice to make a proper HK style chowmien here (it's hard to find here - all the Cantonese restaurants are high-end).

second point: too true - though mistaking Mianbao for noodles is a pretty big mistake!!!

When I go to Shanxi, I delight in the number of noodles - I especially love kaolaolao! My local Shaanxi delivery place has started to do spinach chemian 扯面 and also biangbiang mian （sorry my computer can't manage it) - it rocks!!!