Nian Gao — Chinese new year cake and Chinese food

Nian Gao

The Chinese New Year Cake (Nian Gao) is a rice cake crafted from glutinous rice stuffed with dried fruit and steamed. This is a snack to Chinese flavor characteristics. It has a long history in China during the Han dynasty (207 BC-220 AD), there were already Cakes New Year is also a sign of luck, his name is pronounced “nian gao” in Chinese. homophones of “growing up every year.”

This dessert is sugar and sticky as an offering to the god of the kitchen, for that sticky mouth with the cake he could speak negatively of mankind to the god of all gods, Yu Huang Da Di.

Ingredients

A bag (1.400 kg) of glutinous rice flour

2/3 cup brown sugar, or about 140 grams of brown sugar Chinese (Mandarin pian tang, peen tong in Cantonese)

200 g of boiling water

1/2 cup Chinese dates, softened in water, opened by half, pitted or 1/2 cup other dried fruit, or 1/4 cup of dates and 1/4 cup dried fruit

1 tablespoon milk

Some water

1 tablespoon sesame seeds white

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Preparation:

Prepare the wok to cook steamed.

In a bowl, dissolve the sugar in boiling water (with peen tong, break it into pieces, so that it dissolves faster). Let cool. Soak the Chinese dates in hot water for at least 30 minutes to soft. Open them in two and remove the cores.

In a large bowl, pour glutinous rice flour. Make a well in the middle and pour the water-sugar mixture and mix. Add the milk and start working the dough. Add a tablespoon of water at a time has the dough until a satinee texture, soft. Stir in ½ – ¾ of Chinese dates and / or dried fruit as and as you add water. Work all.

Grease a cake mold square of 24 cm. Roll out the dough for it. Decorate with remaining dates and dried fruits in the “planting” slightly inside. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake the cake steamed for 45 minutes, medium-high or high temperature. Check the edges of the cake come off the mold. Cool off from the heat.

Remove the cake from the mold. Wrap in wax paper and let stand in the refrigerator overnight.

To serve: Cut the cake into quarters, then into thin slices of 6-9 cm and <1 cm thick. Reheat steam or mico-waves.

This cake can also be fried, dipping the slices in the egg beforehand. Use little oil in this case not to taint the taste, and brown for 2 sides (the oil must first be heated to high heat, then reduce by half for frying).

Bake a cake steamed is not your thing? Here is a variant in the oven, this time stuffed with pate adzuki red beans.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups rice flour glutinous

3/4 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

2 1/2 cups of milk

3/4 cup white granulated sugar *

3/4 cup brown sugar *

1 teaspoon of the yeast

1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups pasta with red azuki beans

Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Grease a square mold of 20 cm in dimension.

Mix everything except the beans in a blender at medium speed for about 2 minutes, then 2 minutes of a fast speed.

Spread 1/2 to 3/4 of the dough in bottom of pan.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the dough just begins to take.

Remove the pan from the oven. Add adzuki beans. As the dough has not completely taken the plunge beans a bit – this is normal. Do not try to maintain the top layer in a fixed …

Add the rest of the dough over the beans. Bake for 30 40 minutes extra ..

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