煲 (bāo): to cook slowly over a low flame

Meanings

1 to cook slowly over a low flame
2 to simmer
3 pot; saucepan

Characters

煲

bāo

to simmer; pot

Examples

妈妈每天给我煲汤喝。

Māma měitiān gěi wǒ bāo tāng hē.

Mom simmers soup for me every day.

广东人特别喜欢煲老火汤。

Guǎngdōng rén tèbié xǐhuan bāo lǎohuǒtāng.

Cantonese people especially love making slow-simmered soups.

Tips

culture

煲汤 (slow-simmered soup) is central to Cantonese cuisine. Families simmer soups for hours with medicinal herbs. The word 煲 itself comes from Cantonese dialect.

usage

Also used in 煲电话粥 - to chat on the phone for a long time, literally 'to simmer phone porridge.'

Components

radical

火 huǒ

fire

Fire radical at the bottom marks 煲 as a heat-cooking verb - the slow flame underneath a clay pot is the defining feature of Cantonese 煲汤 (slow soup). Same radical drives 烧 (burn), 炒 (stir-fry), 烤 (roast). 煲 is itself a Cantonese borrowing into Mandarin cuisine vocabulary.

phonetic

保 bǎo

protect; preserve

保 supplies the sound - bǎo → bāo - through a tone shift, and contributes a faint semantic flavor: slow-simmering preserves nutrients, holding the food together over hours. The same character keeps its standalone bǎo reading in 保护, 保险.