Ancient writers loved collecting calligraphy & paintings.
It was quite common to have an exhibition at home.
Huanxuan of East Qin one day invited some friends over to enjoy the paintings.
One of them forgot to wash after eating a snack with his hands.
And he touched the painting leaving finger prints all over.
'Huanxuan was so furious that,
later he made a rule everyone must wash their hands before looking at the paintings.
What exactly was snack that left finger prints on the painting? Aren't you curious to find out?
[Pronunciation of 'cold snack' has same pronunciation as the word that means K-Drama these days]
In the recipe book from southern Song dynasty,
it states that people often perceived cold snack as Sanzi.
Today's Sanzi is salty but it was probably sweet back then.
There is another snack mentioned in other ancient recipe book.
And I think this might be the first Sanzi ever.
Cold cake AKA cold ball,
rice cake AKA other names,
must put into the honey water.
You can replace honey with jujube boiled water.
Cow and sheep fat are required, but
you can use cow milk or sheep milk instead.
It gives you crispier taste.
Only milk is used for rice cake and it crumbles right away in mouth.
They used to make Sanzi with cow/sheep fat or milk.
I used butter instead.
Add cold butter into flour and crush it with your hands.
Just like making western pastry.
Try to keep the butter as cool as possible.
Make flour like sand grains.
By using butter, it sustains flour particles and gives crispier taste.
Pour some milk and mix it well.
Add little bit of salt & honey and make a dough like this.
Let it ferment for a while and make a dough again.
Repeat this process 2 to 3 times, then you will end up with nice looking dough like this.
Make a hole in the middle with your finger like a doughnut.
Make it thin slowly.
Do it till it's thinner than your little finger.
Pour some vegetable oil.
Place the dough in it.
Pour more oil till the dough is sunk completely and ripen it.
After minimum of 2 hours or over a night
ductility & malleability of dough are significantly improved.
Pull the dough with holding the end tightly.
When it gets thinner like this, wind it around your finger.
Finish it by gently pressing where it connects.
Use chopstick to make it thinner by pulling from both ends.
Fry it in the oil at 160`C.
Pull each ends once again.
And then bring both ends together to gently disentangle.
When you see a fixed shape, take out the chopstick
Fry it until it turns yellowish. And then take out the cooked ones to deoil.
Other than this original taste, there was another snack during the Dang dynasty.
It was one of the same type of snack.
The name came from ancient word for sesame seed.
So you can say it's like a Sanzi with sweet sesame seeds.
Just like What I did previously, make a dough with butter.
Mix flour with sesame seeds.
And add salt, milk, and honey.
Like before, repeat making dough and ripen process.
When fried, you will have sesame Sanzi with delicious smell & taste.
You may change the shapes.
Twist it several times while frying and leave it.
Looks like the twisted bread, right?
Sanzi made of butter and milk is really crispy.
There is no need to keep it cool in the fridge.
It is as good in winter days for months.
The name cold snack came from the fact that it is a good snack to have at the Cold Food day.
We don't celebrate the Cold Food day any more.
But the cold snack survives with us.
In fact, it is most common snack we can find at the Lunar New Year's day.
People often use expression like it's so soft & tender or it's crispy outside & soft inside to describe the taste.
However, if you want to talk about gourmet, you can't do it without Su Shi.
Su Shi left a great poem about cold snacks.