''Jiandui'' (, common
misspelling
Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one ...
)
is a type of fried
Chinese pastry
Chinese bakery products ( or ) consist of pastries, cakes, snacks, and desserts of largely East Asian origin, though some are derived from Western baked goods. Some of the most common "Chinese" bakery products include mooncakes, sun cakes (Beiji ...
made from
glutinous rice
Glutinous rice ('' Oryza sativa var. glutinosa''; also called sticky rice, sweet rice or waxy rice) is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast and East Asia, and the northeastern regions of South Asia, which has opaque grains, very low a ...
flour. The pastry is coated with
sesame
Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is c ...
seeds on the outside and is crisp and chewy. Inside the pastry is a large hollow, caused by the expansion of the dough. The hollow of the pastry is filled with a filling usually consisting of
lotus paste, or alternatively sweet
black bean paste, or
red bean paste
Red bean paste () or red bean jam, also called adzuki bean paste or ''anko'' (a Japanese word), is a paste made of red beans (also called "adzuki beans"), used in East Asian cuisine. The paste is prepared by boiling the beans, then mashing or ...
. They are also sometimes referred to as sesame balls ().
Depending on the region and cultural area, ''jian dui'' is known as ''matuan'' () in northern China, ''ma yuan'' () in northeast China, and ''zhen dai'' () in
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slight ...
.
Origin
The origins of ''jian dui'' can be traced back to the
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdo ...
as a palace food in