Chinese noodles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinese cuisine includes many different types of noodles, called miàn (Traditional Chinese: 麺; Simplified Chinese: 面; often transliterated as "mien" or "mein" ). "Miàn" (麪) refers to noodles made from wheat while "fěn" (粉) or "fun" refers to noodles made from rice.

Unlike many western noodles and pastas, Chinese wheat noodles are usually made from salted dough and therefore do not require the addition of salt to the liquid in which they are cooked. Chinese noodles also cook very quickly, requiring less than 5 minutes to become al dente and some taking less than a minute to finish cooking.

Nomenclature of the noodles is difficult due to the vast spectrum available and the many dialects of Chinese used to name them. Each noodle type can be rendered in pinyin for Mandarin, but in Hong Kong and neighboring Guangdong it will be known by its Cantonese pronunciation, while Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and many other Overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia will use Hokkien instead.

1 The character mian
2 List of Chinese noodle types
3 List of Chinese noodle dishes
4 External links

[edit] The character mian

The character for miàn (wheat noodles) can be written a number of ways in Chinese. The standard Traditional character is 麺; the standard Simplified character is 面. Variant characters include 麪, 麵 , and 靣. The characters 面 and 麺 are separate characters in Traditional Chinese, the former meaning "face" and the latter meaning "noodles" or "flour". In Simplified Chinese, the two characters have been combined and both meanings are expressed by 面.

[edit] List of Chinese noodle types

Characters	Pinyin	Cantonese	Hokkien	Description	Western equivalent	Thai equivalent
面/麺	miàn	min	mee	Medium wheat noodles	Spaghetti
幼面			mee kiah	Thin egg noodles	Vermicelli
面薄			mee pok	Flat egg noodles	Linguini
拉麺	lāmiàn	lai min		Hand-pulled egg noodles; Japanese ramen		Ba mee (เส้นบะหมี่)
撈麺	lāo miàn	lo mein		Stir fried wheat flour noodles
米粉	mífěn	mai fun	bee hoon	Thin rice noodles	Rice vermicelli	Sen mee (เส้นหมี่)
米線/米线	mǐxiàn	mai sin		Rice noodles; also called Guilin mífěn (桂林米粉)	Rice spaghetti	Sen lek (เส้นเล็ก)
叻沙	lā shā	lik sa	laksa	Peranakan rice noodles	Rice spaghetti
瀨粉/酹粉	lài fěn	laai fun		Thick round semi-transparent noodle made from sticky rice	Thick rice spaghetti
粿条	gǔotiáo	kwai tiu	kway teow	Flat rice noodles	Rice fettuccine	Sen yai (เส้นใหญ่)
沙河粉/河粉	shāhéfěn / héfěn	ho fun	hor fun	Very wide, flat rice noodles	Rice pappardelle
冬粉	dōngfěn	dung fun	dang hun	Very thin mung bean starch noodles	Thin mung bean vermicelli
粉絲/綠豆麪	fěnsī / lǜ dòu miàn	fun sze		Thin mung bean noodles	Mung bean vermicelli	Wun sen (วุ้นเส้น)
麺線/宮麺	miànxiàn / gōngmiàn	min sin	misua	Thin salted egg wheat noodles (1 mm diameter)	Long and short very fine Vermicelli
伊麺/伊府麺	Yīmiàn / Yīfǔmiàn	yee min / yee foo min	ee mee	Aka e-fu noodle (fried egg noodles)
老鼠粉/銀針粉	lǎo shǔ fěn / yín zhēn fěn	lóuh syú fán / ngàhn jām fán		Lao Shu Fen / Yin Zhen Fen (photo), literally "Rat Tail Noodle" / "Silver Needle Noodle". About 5cm long, 3-5mm in diameter, ans spindle-shaped.
蝦子麺	xiãzi miàn	ha tsz min		Shrimp roe noodle
粗面/粗麺 or 上海粗面	cū miàn or Shanghai cū miàn			Thick wheat flour noodles; similar to Japanese udon