rice cake

Sweet Rice Cakes with Red Bean Paste (糯米餅)

Sweet rice cakes with red bean paste filling are something that Mama Lin makes often for gatherings. They are flat “cakes” with a chewy mochi-like exterior and smooth red bean paste in the center. In ...

Steamed Taro Cake (芋頭糕, 芋頭糍)

HOW TO SAY TARO CAKE IN CHINESE Taro Cake is 芋頭糕 in traditional Chinese characters and 芋头糕 in simplified characters. The Cantonese pronunciation is woo tau go and the Mandarin pronunciation is yu ...

Toisan New Year Rice Cakes (迎年圓)

Lunar New Year celebrations aren’t complete without a batch of Mama Lin’s 迎年圓, literally “rice cakes to welcome the new year.” In the Toisan dialect (台山話), it's pronounced ngan nan zyuan (note that ...

Savory Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls, 鹹湯圓)

Many of us think about the winter solstice merely as the shortest day of the year, but in Chinese culture it is a very important festival. Dongzhi (冬至), which literally translates to “the extreme of ...

A Guide to Asian Rice Crackers

Asian rice crackers were a staple of my childhood. They are light, not too greasy, and bursting with umami flavor. The range of Asian rice crackers is vast. The list below is merely the tip of the ...

Nian Gao (年糕, Chinese New Year Cake)

WHAT IS NIAN GAO? Every year, Mama Lin makes a nian gao (年糕, neen go in Cantonese) for Lunar New Year. The character “年” means “year” and “糕” roughly translates to “cake.” Put together, 年糕 means ...