How to Write 煮 (zhǔ) — Meaning “to boil; to cook”

Imagine a person (者) standing over four flames (灬) while stirring a pot — that person is boiling food, so it is 煮 (zhǔ). The four flames remind you that boiling requires strong, steady heat.

The top part 者 should be written with balanced strokes, especially the long horizontal line in the middle. The bottom radical 灬 is four fire dots, and they must be evenly spaced and slightly slanted to the right — a common mistake is to make them too small or too far apart.

While 煮 (zhǔ) means 'to boil or cook with fire', 烈 (liè) means 'fierce' or 'intense', and uses a different top component (列). 烝 (zhēng) means 'to steam' and has the top component 丞; it also uses the fire radical but refers to a different cooking method. Visually, 煮 has the 者 top, 烈 has 列, and 烝 has 丞.

煮 is a common verb for boiling or cooking food in liquid, such as 煮饭 (to cook rice) or 煮面 (to cook noodles). In Chinese culture, 煮 is a basic cooking technique used daily, and it often appears in recipes and household instructions. It is also used in idioms like 煮豆燃萁 (boiling beans with burning beanstalks), which refers to harming one's own kin.

Common words containing 煮 include: 煮饭 (zhǔ fàn) — to cook rice; to prepare a meal; 煮面 (zhǔ miàn) — to cook noodles; 煮鸡蛋 (zhǔ jī dàn) — to boil eggs.