We received this Aji Ichiban Fried Dough Dice and weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Its name doesn’t make complete sense and it looks like lumps of fried dough. A little digging around shows this is a a type of seitan, which is commonly consumed by the Chinese as a substitute for meat, especially among adherents of Buddhism.
These lumps of fried dough smell exactly like as we’d expected — like oily fried dough — but their flavour surprised us. Having read the ingredients and finding sugar as the second ingredient after wheat, we’d stopped reading the ingredients list and were expecting lumps of sweet dough. Upon tasting though, the sweetness is there but its predominantly savoury with fragrant curry and spicy chilli flavour. It tastes much like the batter that coats the sticky honey pork ribs that can be ordered at yum cha, only without the pork. It tastes much better than we’d expected but it’s something best enjoyed in small portions.
This Aji Ichiban Fried Dough Dice contained 400 g. It was produced in Hong Kong and received as a gift from family visiting Hong Kong in 2019.