Misua

Misua

Fried misua noodles
Origin
Place of origin	China
Region or state	Fujian
Details
Type	Chinese noodles
Main ingredient(s)	Wheat flour

Misua
Traditional Chinese	麵線
Simplified Chinese	面线
Literal meaning	noodle threads
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin miànxiàn Southern Min Hokkien POJ mī-sòaⁿ

Misua (also spelled mee sua or miswa) is a very thin variety of salted Chinese 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.

Bola-bola with misua (Philippines)

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 topped with ingredients such as eggs, oysters, pig's large intestine, shiitake mushroom, beef, shallots, or scallions, and roasted nuts.

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.

See also

• Chinese noodles
• List of noodles
• Oyster vermicelli
• Sōmen