Videos of one of the strangest street snacks have once again gone viral on Chinese social media — transparent pieces that look like giant ice cubes and go straight onto a red-hot grill.
The vendor generously pours oil over them, adds hot pepper, spices, green onion and other seasonings, after which the whole thing is fried over the fire for a while.
From the outside, the process looks completely illogical: the ice lies on the hot grate, and the person calmly keeps cooking it, as if it were a piece of meat.
Similar dishes already appeared in viral videos in China a few years ago. What's more, back then the vendors actually claimed to use large pieces of real ice: thanks to their size, they don't have time to melt completely during the short time on the grill.
The new videos also feature transparent jelly-like versions that are almost impossible to distinguish from ice by appearance. That's why several versions of the dish are now circulating on social media under one name.
The best part here isn't even the recipe, but the idea itself.
Buying water is too easy.
Freezing water is already more interesting.
Frying it, sprinkling it with pepper and selling it as a street snack — now that's where haute cuisine begins. 😄
The main thing is to eat it quickly. Because some versions of this dish have a truly unique property:
if you talk at the table for too long, dinner turns into a drink.
And still, let's clarify: this is not frozen water, but a transparent jelly made to look like ice.
That's exactly why it doesn't turn into a puddle after a few seconds, and it can be fried and even cooked to your preferred degree of doneness. The vendor, for example, asked a female customer whether she wanted it crispier or softer.
The dish still looks maximally suspicious: your brain sees a giant ice cube lying over an open fire and tries to understand why what's happening hasn't yet violated several laws of physics.
In the end, Chinese street food has once again proven:
if ordinary jelly looks too boring, you have to make it look like ice, throw it on the grill and add chili.
