Misua
Fried misua noodles | |
Type | Chinese noodles |
---|---|
Place of origin | China |
Region or state | Fujian |
Main ingredients | Wheat flour |
Cookbook: Misua Media: Misua |
Misua | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 麵線 | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Simplified Chinese | 面线 | ||||||||||
Literal meaning | noodle threads | ||||||||||
|
Misua (also spelled mee sua or miswa; originated from the Hokkien word mī-soàⁿ) is a very thin variety of salted noodles made from wheat flour. It originated in Fujian, china. The noodles differ from mifen (rice vermicelli) and cellophane noodles in that the latter two are made from rice and mung beans, respectively, and are typically a lot thinner than those two varieties.
Description
Misua is made from wheat flour. Cooking misua usually takes less than 2 minutes in boiling water, and sometimes significantly less.
Culture
Misua is cooked during important festivities, and eaten in mainland China as well in Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand, and the Philippines. Misua signifies long life in Chinese culture, and as such is a traditional birthday food.
It is usually served with ingredients such as eggs, oysters, pig's large intestine, shiitake mushroom, beef, shallots, or scallions, roasted nuts or fried fish.
In Taiwan, there are two forms of misua. The first is plain, while the second has been steamed at high heat, caramelizing it to a light brown colour. For birthdays, plain misua is usually served plain with pork hocks (猪腳麵線) in stewed broth as a Taiwanese birthday tradition. Brown misua can be cooked for prolonged periods without disintegrating in the cooking broth and is used in oyster vermicelli (蚵仔麵線), a dish popular in Taiwan.