Penang Popiah 檳城薄餅

Popiah (24 May 2008)


Penang Popiah (檳城薄餅) is a Teochew-style spring roll. It is usually sold by Chinese hawkers although on occasion, you may find an Indian Muslim popiah stall. The popiah filling comprises grated turnip (mangkuang/hongkuak), lettuce leaf, beancurd, egg bits, grated carrot, a dash of chilli paste (huan cheo ciau) and sweet sauce (tnee ciau) and a sprinkling of fried onions. Home-made popiah may also have shittake mushrooms, prawns, crab meat to give it a richer, more luxurious flavor.

The name popiah, which in Teochew and Hokkien means "thin wafer", refers to the skin which is a crêpe made from wheat flour. The sweet sauce is made from soy sauce (tau you), bean sauce (tau ciau) and prawn paste (hae ko). A combination of grated turnip, a smaller portion of grated carrot and optionally, bean sprouts, is steamed.

To prepare popiah, start with the skin. Apply the sweet sauce and chilli paste to the skin. Then place a piece of lettuce leaf. Over this place a spoonful or two of the turnip combo filling. Sprinkle fried grounded peanuts, fried shallots, and shredded fried egg. Fold the skin from bottom to the middle, then fold the two sides in. Finally roll it upwards. And there you have it, one popiah roll.

Popiah is also deep fried to create po₃piah₁-chi₃ or chun piah (spring roll), often sold with Lor Bak.

Ingredients of Popiah:

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Where to find Popiah Stalls in Penang

Popiah is available at the following locations in Penang:

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Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

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