Definitions

qiàng to briefly boil (a vegetable etc), then dress with soy sauce, oil, vinegar etc; to briefly stir-fry (meat, chopped spring onions etc), then add to other ingredients and cook further

Etymology phono-semantic

fire

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

is a phono-semantic compound character. The fire radical on the left places it semantically in the realm of high temperatures, cooking fires, and specific culinary processes, while the right-side component functions as the phonetic, replacing the traditional seen in . It denotes a highly specific Chinese cooking technique: ingredients (usually vegetables) are first briefly boiled or blanched in water, then rapidly stir-fried with hot oil, aromatics, and seasonings. The definition is strictly limited to this specialized method and the dishes it yields, with no extended metaphorical senses beyond the world of gastronomy and recipes.