Reading Chinese Menus: Characters: 球 and 丸 — qiú and wán — balls and more balls

[kake]

球 and 丸

Earlier this week, I posted about less-common menu characters that are still worth learning. One of these characters is 球 (qiú), which literally means ball/sphere/globe.

I first came across 球 in the name of a dish I ate at Dragon Inn in South London — 南乳脆鱔球 (nán rǔ cuì shàn qiú), or crispy eel with red fermented beancurd. 南乳 (literally "southern milk") is the red fermented beancurd, 脆 means "crispy", 鱔 is eel, and 球 is... ball?

However, there are no balls, globes, or spheres in this dish. 球 actually refers to the way that the eel pieces curl up as they're cooked (see photo). It's also sometimes used in the names of prawn (蝦/xiā) dishes, since prawns have a similar tendency to curl. Below are some examples from the menu of Red & Hot near Euston Station in London. The English translations are theirs, not mine — the Chinese names don't specify that king prawns are used in the dish. Note that the dish names would still be intelligible without the 球:

宮保蝦球	gōng bǎo xiā qiú	gong bao king prawn
魚香蝦球	yú xiāng xiā qiú	fish-fragrant king prawn
西芹蝦球	xī qín xiā qiú	sauteed king prawns with celery

While 球 is also used on dim sum menus to mean balls-as-in-meatballs, the character I've most commonly seen used for this on other menus is 丸 (wán). 丸 primarily appears in two contexts: soup (湯/tāng) and ingredients for hotpot (火鍋/huǒ guō). Here are some examples:

魚丸湯	yú wán tāng	fishball soup
冬瓜丸子湯	dōng guā wán zi tāng	winter melon and meatball soup (note the 子/zi here — john sheds some light on this in comments — and also note that the type of ball is not explicitly specified)
牛肉丸	niú ròu wán	beef balls
豬肉丸	zhū ròu wán	pork balls
蟹味丸	xiè wèi wán	crab-flavour balls

The last three of these are common ingredients in Chinese hotpot, which is this week's dish post.

球:	qiú	radical 96 (玉/王)	Cantodict	MandarinTools	YellowBridge	Zhongwen
丸:	wán	radical 3 (丶)	Cantodict	MandarinTools	YellowBridge	Zhongwen

Related posts:

• 湯 (tāng/soup),
• 火鍋 (huǒ guō/hotpot)

If you have any questions or corrections, please leave a comment (here's how) and let me know (or email me at kake@earth.li). See my introductory post to the Chinese menu project for what these posts are all about.

Comments

丸子!

[john]

Re 丸子: from my year in Beijing, I think I may be able to shed some light! 丸子 are, in my experience, a more bready sort of meatball, more akin to the consistency of western style meatballs, whereas 丸 are less bready and more proteiny, if that's a word.

丸子 in Beijing came as 大丸子, which are large (2.5 inches across), porky, and in a thin gravy. If you know what a British faggot is like, it's kind of like that except less offal. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)

They also came as xiao丸子 (small-xiao...I have forgotten the order of strokes in xiao and am on the iPad which I have set up for characters and not pinyin entry), in tangcu (sweet and sour) xiao丸子, which were about an inch across and in the much nicer brown sweet and sour and not the gloopy red stuff.

Re: 丸子!

[kake]

Brilliant, thanks! I've edited the post to add a note pointing to this comment.

And yes, I do know what faggots are, and have even made my own in the past :)

Re: 丸子!

[superpitching]

Good heavens faggots are delicious. Oh my goodness. Faggots.

Re: 丸子!

[kake]

Now I want faggots for lunch!

Re: 丸子!

[superpitching]

You are not the only one. I am having a new exciting Pret sandwich instead - "hot smoked trout and horseradish", who is more surprised than I to report that it is actually delicious?

Re: 丸子!

[kake]

So, I just discovered 珍珠丸子, or pearl meatballs, which have glutinous rice on the outside (and sound kind of tasty). There's a recipe here and another recipe including photos here — do those seem to have the sort of texture you're talking about? (I also found another rather peculiar-looking recipe that wants you to put at least 1 cup of water in the ground meat for the meatballs... I have no idea how that could possibly work.)

I'm actually having trouble remembering the texture of the meatballs I've had in hotpot (and those were 丸 with no 子), though I do remember the fishballs had a very homogeneous texture. Luckily I'm having hotpot tomorrow night so can check :)

Re: 丸子!

[john]

I hope you enjoyed your huo guo! (Or was it sha guo?)

I used the magic of the Internets to find some pictures! Do a Ctrl/Cmd-F for the word "wan" and you'll find 大丸子 at http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=759334&page=4

And I found tangcu xiaowanzi at http://www.foodeats.cn/group_thread/view/cps-8/id-3896 -- though I hope your character-reading is better than mine.

Re: 丸子!

[kake]

I hope you enjoyed your huo guo! (Or was it sha guo?)

I had to look up what sha guo is :) 沙鍋, or claypot, right? Last night's dinner was 火鍋, at the place where the photo on this post was taken. There were 18 of us, and it was really really brilliant.

The meatballs (牛肉丸 on the menu) were not as homogeneous as the fish/prawn balls — I'd been wondering if perhaps 丸 without the 子 meant that the protein component was really finely pulverised, but apparently not.

I used the magic of the Internets to find some pictures! Do a Ctrl/Cmd-F for the word "wan" and you'll find 大丸子 at http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=759334&page=4

I used the magic of Flickr to find the host pages of your pictures :) 東北川大丸子 and 東北煎丸子, yes? They totally look like faggots, you're right! Particularly the pan-fried ones.

And I found tangcu xiaowanzi at http://www.foodeats.cn/group_thread/view/cps-8/id-3896 -- though I hope your character-reading is better than mine.

Sadly, I cannot read actual prose, just menus. I may do something about this in the future.

[superpitching]

Haaaa... I had forgotten that I did actually know the Chinese reading for 丸... who says Johnnys Entertainment teaches you nothing?? A fellow called 丸山 (Maruyama...) has a bizarre solo song where he chants the Chinese reading of his name "WAN SHAN..." over and over (I also think he shouts IECHYD DA (iechyd da... taiiyouu... I can't unhear it!) at some point but probably not eh)?

Here is a link if you feel particularly... inclined... warning, it starts with a good few seconds of, I think, monkeys chanting? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKaCR3HBAp8

So I also know 山 reads in Chinese as shan. Isn't that useful? He'll be coming round the mountain when he comes...

[kake]

I listened to the whole thing, and it's probably the oddest thing I've heard this year! And yes, it does sound rather like "iechyd da"...

[superpitching]

What a quadlingual post this is, begob.

[eatlovenoodles.blogspot.com]

Us Cantonese are a pain as we call fish balls, yu dan 魚蛋, lit. fish eggs. Non-Cantonese of course call them yu wan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_balls

[kake]

Heh, so many names for the same thing! Thanks for the info, and for the link — I note they also have 魚旦 listed as another alternative, which is the name used on the last packet of fish balls I bought (photo). "Fish dawn"?