How to Make Rice Cake

Nian gao is usually made from ground glutinous rice, and is made differently in different parts of China;

When it was introduced to neighboring countries, different ways of making it and its flavors were developed according to their dietary habits.

Chinese Rice CakeNorthern Rice CakeNorthern rice cakes can be steamed or fried and are mainly sweet.

Beijing's rice cakes include red date rice cake, white rice cake, and white rice cake made from river rice or yellow rice.

Shanxi, on the other hand, uses yellow rice flour to make rice cakes, which are deep-fried and can be filled with bean paste or date paste.

Hebei used to add jujubes, small red beans and mung beans to the rice cakes and steam them together, while Shandong rice cakes were steamed with jujubes and yellow rice.

Northeast China's rice cakes are mainly made from sticky sorghum rice steamed with beans.

The rice cakes of the Yangtze River Basin are white and mildly flavored, made from a mixture of round-grained rice and glutinous rice in a certain proportion, which can be adjusted according to personal preference, with the proportion of glutinous rice increased for those who prefer soft food and the opposite for those who prefer hard food.

Cooking methods include steaming, deep-frying, slicing and stir-frying, and boiling in soup.

Ningbo Cicheng's rice cakes are the most famous, and common ways to make them include rice cakes in soup with shredded pork and snow vegetables, and fried rice cakes with water chestnuts.

Shanghai's rice cake with pork ribs is also unique.

In addition, some rural areas in the south of the Yangtze River use the foot-pedal method to make rice cakes, which are called "foot-pedal cakes".

Fujian rice cake in southern Fujian is sticky rice cake, natural amber color, mainly for New Year's festivals and gifts, made of glutinous rice, taro, usually sliced and fried, or coated with egg sauce, or too white powder (cornstarch) or sweet potato flour fried food.

]Taiwan rice cake Taiwan's traditional rice cake Taiwan dialect commonly known as sweet kuey teow (i.e., sticky cake), mainly for ceremonial purposes, Taiwan's traditional etiquette to rice cake gift means that the recipient is in mourning, Taiwan is inhabited by people from different cultures, so in Taiwan must pay attention to the other side of the cultural background of the etiquette of the gift, to put a red packet placed into a coin or banknote, is the most likely to avoid this annoying gift-giving taboos.

Taiwanese rice cakes are not manufactured in exactly the same way in the north and south, the northern rice cakes are more influenced by late immigrants from mainland China, and there are peanut rice cakes, brown sugar rice cakes and red bean rice cakes, which are all made by grinding glutinous rice and then pressed and dried to remove excess water and then added peanuts, brown sugar or red beans and other materials to be steamed.

Taiwan's central and southern rice cakes were made by immigrants from the south of mainland China in the early days, and the practice is relatively simple: cook glutinous rice to a paste over a low flame, add sugar and let it cool down, and then eat it after frying, for a more chewy texture;

Taiwan's northern rice cakes are more time-consuming and labor intensive, as they are made by first grinding the glutinous rice into a rice paste and putting it into a rice bag to press it dry, and then putting slices into the big cauldron to be cooked with syrup, and then pulling them up with a long bamboo sheet and putting them into the rice bag to be cooked. After it is cooked, it is then pulled up into a container with a long piece of bamboo, a process called "sweet rice cake", which has a soft and delicate texture.

It is also worth mentioning that in northern Taiwan, there are also rice cakes made by Fuzhou immigrants from southern Fujian, which are naturally amber in color, but the difference is that Fuzhou rice cakes in Taiwan are made by adding pork, taro, and peanuts, which has completely subverted the original taste, and are usually sliced and pan-fried. Traditional Taiwanese rice cake.

Cantonese Rice CakeCantonese and Hong Kong rice cakes are reddish-orange sticky cakes with a sweet flavor made of glutinous rice, sugar and lard, and are usually sliced and fried, which is quite greasy.

Other pastries such as horseshoe cake, taro cake, and turnip cake would also be considered nian gao.

In Hong Kong, there is also a type of "coconut rice cake", which uses coconut milk instead of sugar to give it a white appearance.

Japanese rice cakes are also known as mirror cakes.

Namago is also popular in Japan as part of the New Year's celebrations (which was changed to New Year's Day in the solar calendar after the Meiji Restoration).

Japanese rice cakes are white and lightly flavored, and are traditionally made by placing rice balls in a large wooden barrel and hitting them repeatedly with a hammer.

Korean-style rice cakes are similar to Ningbo rice cakes from southern China, but cooked differently.