🍽️ Golden Thread Oil Tower

Thousand-layer steamed oil pastry.

Golden Thread Oil Tower is a delicate traditional pastry of Xi'an, Shaanxi, a refined Guanzhong wheat snack. Flour dough is repeatedly rubbed with rendered pork fat and pulled, building a thousand layers as fine as gold thread, then coiled into a small tower and steamed. Lifted, it drapes in fluffy golden strands; set down, it holds neat layers. It is soft, richly oily and mildly salted. The pulling skill and fat ratio matter most, threads must be hair-fine yet unbroken. Xi'an locals order a steamer of it at time-honored shops with millet porridge or spiced pork elbow. Exquisitely crafted and shaped like a layered golden pagoda, it represents Shaanxi noodle-pastry at its most skillful and sculptural.