Senbei

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Senbei

Standard senbei and a cross-section view
Alternative names	Sembei
Type	Rice cracker
Place of origin	Japan
Region or state	East Asia
Main ingredients	Japanese rice (uruchimai)
Media: Senbei

Senbei (煎餅, alternatively spelled sembei) are a type of Japanese rice cracker.^[1] They come in various shapes, sizes, and flavors, usually savory but sometimes sweet. Senbei are often eaten with green tea as a casual snack and offered to visiting house guests as a courtesy refreshment.

There are several types of traditional Japanese senbei. They can be baked or deep-fried and sometimes sweetened. Aside from rice, wheat flour or starch can be used. Some varieties even use foods other than grains, such as sakana senbei (fish-senbei), renkon senbei (lotus root senbei) and hone senbei (bone-senbei).

Senbei have several variations, including nori-wrapped, arare, Olive no Hana, soy nut, and wet. Thin rice crackers (薄焼きせんべい usuyaki senbei) are popular in Australia and other countries.^[2]

In China, the same characters used to write senbei are read jiānbǐng (煎饼; 煎餅; jiānbǐng); the term instead refers to a crepe and is more similar in preparation to okonomiyaki among Japanese foods. In Japan, senbei are hard and crispy, and are bite-sized snacks rather than street-food meals. However, crackers similar to Japanese senbei can be found in China today and their modern Chinese name is 仙贝; 仙貝; xiānbèi, which reflects the Japanese-language pronunciation of "senbei" (煎餅).