Radish Dumpling (Fried Radish Fritter)

Yichang's radish dumpling has nothing to do with northern dumplings: a long-handled iron ladle is coated with rice batter, heaped with shredded local white radish (often mixed with garlic shoots, chilli and Sichuan pepper), then capped with more batter and the whole ladle plunged into hot oil; once golden it slips free, the shell crisp and the filling scalding and savoury.

The radish dumpling is a fried street snack Yichang people grow up on, spread widely because western Hubei abounds in radish and rice batter is easy to come by; it is most in season when the autumn and winter radish harvest fills the streets, the fryers bubbling at every corner, one of the city's most characterful everyday snacks.

Fried to order and eaten piping hot in hand, diners bite through the crisp shell to the scalding shredded-radish filling, often dusted with a little pepper-salt or chilli powder, usually as a street snack or afternoon bite while out walking.

The long-handled-ladle moulding, the golden half-moon shell and the scalding, gently spicy shredded-radish filling are the unmistakable signatures of the Yichang radish dumpling.