Soup Magazine

Feeling Peckish? Fried Food

Posted on 23. Jun, 2009 by admin in Food and Drink, Opinion

If you’ve been in Taiwan for any length of time, you’ve probably found yourself in a night market at some point or another. The sights, lights, sounds and smells can be overwhelming – and how is one meant to stop and consider the fine delicacies on offer while being buffeted around the seething maelstrom of people, animals and scooters? This month, the comestibles consumer looks at fried stuff off the back of a cart.

Duck Gizzard 鴨胗

The gizzard, or ventriculus if you’re of an educated cast, is essentially the bit of the stomach which crushes up the food the duck has swallowed. So if you’re assuming its texture has more in common with cartilage than meat – a tender kneecap, if you will – you’re absolutely correct. Seasoned with apparently pure MSG.

Djen Dai 腱帶

The purveyor fella said this is the bit of the duck viscera which goes around the gizzard – a hastily scribbled anatomical diagram his evidence. An online dictionary called it a ‘tendon belt’. It felt like biting through semi-digested rubber. Far preferable to the gizzard, then. More liberal sprinklings of MSG.

Glutinous Rice Sausage 糯米腸

Imagine a sausage which swaps sticky rice for the more traditional animal offal. This turgid treat goes fantastically well with beer, and actually improves the gizzards and tendons. Recommended as a base for anything else you’re eating.

Chicken Butt 雞屁股

Nothing says enterprising quite like taking a fatty, bony bit of chicken, spearing it with a skewer, frying it up and selling it. The only redeeming thing about this is the novelty of eating a chicken’s arse. Everyone has to do it at least once, but honestly, it gets pretty ‘meh’ pretty quickly.

Soybean Milk Chicken 豆乳雞

This stuff tastes great. It’s fried, it’s chicken, it’s proper fleshy bits, and the bones are big and easily avoided. Much, much better than chicken butt. If you can find the variety which has been whipped up with a soybean milk marinade of sorts, then all the better for you.

Fried Calamari Balls 花枝丸

Marine fauna mashed up and rolled into golfball-sized orbs, jammed onto a skewer and fried in oil – should be a winner, but its gustative qualities end up lacking somewhat. Again, if you can find the dipped-in-soybean-milk ones then you’re in luck. Otherwise, it’s just lumpy squid on a stick.

Fried Sweet Potato Fries 炸番薯條

Imagine a french fry which is made from sweet potato. Okay… that’s about it. Oh, ours were heavily doused with that powder more often associated with eating fruit. A little bit is fine, but too much is very overpowering.

Ba-wan (Meat Circle) 肉圓

This shell of chewy greyish dough is filled with some pork, bamboo, and green onion. Initially, it is cooked by steaming, but also gets a round of frying. Then all potential for tastiness is summarily removed when a large vat of that pinky-red sauce is dumped over it. If you can ensure that your vendor exercises restraint, it’s a great snack.

Fried fermented stinky tofu 肉圓

Well, these little cubes of light-brown spongy goodness didn’t stink. Not one bit. And they didn’t taste of anything either. Luckily, there was powerful garlic soy sauce, some Taiwanese kimchi, and lots of capsicum on hand to make it sort-of worthwhile.

Pig sausage (in a rice sausage ‘bun’) 台式香腸

Some might call this pork, but let us rather just identify the source as porcine. These are also great on the back end of a few tins of Taiwan Beer, and if you can find the sausage-in-a-rice-sausage combination, you’re set. Otherwise, it’s back to the bamboo skewer and a number of different flavourings. Lemon drizzled over one of these is actually really good, but the ones garnished with basil are probably best – and basil is green which makes this a health snack.

Tags: fast food, food, greasy, night market, taiwan