Tukang Cakwe (You Tiao/ Chinese fried bread stick)

Here in Indonesia, You Tiao (油条) - Chinese fried bread stick/crullers, is more known as Cakwe. We eat it normally with congee for breakfast or deep it into sweet sour chili sauce as snack.

I remember when I was in China, everytime I ordered cakwe for my breakfast, it's always served with soy bean milk.

The cakwe dough is made from flour, water, alum and salt.

Deep fried.
Cakwe

As you can see, a cakwe/you tiao is two long fried bread stick together. It's interesting to learn the story behind of it from my favorite book "Origins of Chinese Food Culture".

According to this book, during the Song dynasty, there's a famous and well respected General named Yue Fei. He fought and won against the invader - Jin Dynasty.

But then, in year 1142, the unfair Prime Minister Qin Hui together with his wife Wang Shi, executed Yue Fei without any reason.

The people of Song Dynasty got so angry but they couldn't do anything thus to relieve the anger, a baker made a bread resembles 2 people's shapes that represents Qin Hui and his wife, then deep fried in hot oil.
In the beginning, this fried bread was names as "fried Hui" but later on after Qin Hui passed away, the named changed to "yàu ja gwái" (油炸鬼), which means "oil-fried ghost".
Anyway, these days, the name of this bread has been simplified to "You Tiao" (油条), it means "oil strips".