San Wei Yuan

San Wei Yuan, popularly known as Tang Mian Jin, are actually dumplings cooked with wheat gluten as the skin, filled with the stuffing of chopped chicken breast, fresh shrimp meat, hog ham meat, and the flavoring of shallot, ginger and rice wine.

They are cooked in chicken soup, thus looking crystal with thin husk and tender stuffing. They integrate the merits of desserts, dishes and soups. Chen Congzhou, a famous ancient architecture expert, gave unstinted praises after tasting them.

In the southern Yangtze River area, San Wei Yuan is a popular dish among the public. Every household knows how to make them. In June of the lunar year, when new wheat is harvested, people will grind sunned wheat to powder, sieve them with fine screens, and store up the snow-white wheat powder.

They then use the wheat gluten, with the proper amount of salt and water added, to mix them into paste. They will leave the paste aside for one or two hours, and then wash them with clean water, until they turn into a sticky bun of gluten, which can be used as the skin of San Wei Yuan to wrap up all sorts of stuffing.