What it is
Ding bian cuo (鼎邊趖, Taiwanese tiánn-pinn-sô) is a rice noodle snack from Fuzhou. A batter of long-grain rice is cooked into a thin sheet on the side of a wok, then cut or torn into pieces and served in a thickened soup. The pieces are soft and slippery. In Matsu it goes by the name ding bian hu (鼎邊糊).
Where it came from
The dish comes from Fuzhou, on the Fujian coast, where it belongs to the local cuisine. In the Ming and Qing dynasties traders took it inland to central Zhejiang, where cooks short of seafood changed the ingredients.
Most explanations of the name point to the method. 鼎 is the wok, and 趖 is a Hokkien word for wriggling or creeping, which suits batter sliding slowly down hot metal. A popular alternative story says the soup was so good that people crowded round the pot.
In Keelung the dish is tied to Fuzhou families. The grandfather of one stallholder moved from Fuzhou to Keelung in 1937 and paired the home recipe with local seafood. That stall, Hsing Chi Ding Bian Cuo (邢記鼎邊趖), has been run for more than 70 years by three generations of the family. Another stall, Wu Chia Ding Bian Cuo (吳家鼎邊趖), facing the Dianji Temple (奠濟宮) at Miaokou, is said to be a century old.
How it is made
Long-grain rice (在來米) is ground with water into a thin batter. The cook puts water in the bottom of a wok, wipes the rim with oil, traditionally using a cut piece of taro or radish, and pours batter round the hot edge. Heat and steam set it into a sheet, which is lifted off, dried and cut. Many stalls now prepare the sheets in advance. The pieces are dropped into a thick soup with shrimp and pork in starchy coatings (羹, geng), squid, cabbage, bamboo shoot, day-lily buds and shiitake.
How to eat it
It is a snack-sized bowl rather than a full meal, and a common first stop at Keelung's Miaokou night market (廟口夜市). Most stalls now cook the rice sheets ahead of time and assemble each bowl to order, ladling over the soup and finishing it with fried garlic and chopped celery. Keelung tempura (天婦羅), sold at the same night market, is an easy side.
Around Taiwan
- North
- Keelung's Miaokou night market is the dish's stronghold, with stalls run by the same families for generations. It is also sold in Taipei and at night markets in Taoyuan, where the soup includes garlic-chive flower buds and day-lily.
- Outlying islands
- Matsu keeps the Fuzhou name, ding bian hu (鼎邊糊). Amei's shop in the Shizi market at Jieshou, Nangan, pours the batter on the edge of the hot stock pot and scrapes it straight into the broth.
