Join my grandma and I in the kitchen as she teaches me how to make her nian gao (sweet rice cake)! This dessert is traditionally eaten during Chinese New Year, but I could eat this every flippin’ day!
Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday and we all have favourite customs and food traditions. For some, it’s the red pockets of money or lavish family dinners. Others, maybe the platter of candied treats or watching the lion dancers spit out raw lettuce. For me, it’s hands-down the nian gao (年糕), i.e. sweet rice cake. In the same way that Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas without gingerbread, I can not live through a Chinese New Year without having sweet rice cake. Even though it doesn’t look like much more than a plain brown slab of jelly, nian gao ranks in my top 10 favourite foods so give this sweet rice cake a chance!
There was a time in my childhood when the local dimsum restaurants would serve up various flavours of nian gao and I made it my mission to sample them all: coconut, red sugar, brown sugar, yellow sugar, with red beans, shaped like a koi fish, baked (like this recipe!), or pan-fried. In the end, my favourite sweet rice cake is the one my grandma makes.
Every home cook seasons their food differently; I can taste the difference between my mother’s tomato and egg dish and my grandma’s, and even my friend’s grandma’s. It’s the same dish, but each cook has their own take on it. Even though there may already be a million sweet rice cake recipes out there, I wanted to document and record the one my po-po (maternal grandma) makes.
There is so much cultural food knowledge that is so close to becoming extinct. One of my friends recently declared she was finally “embracing her Asian roots”. Although we laughed and joked about it at the time, learning to love and appreciate your cultural heritage is a profound realization. Since I was born and raised in Canada, my parents and grandparents are the only connection I have to Cantonese and Hong Kong culture.
I’m so fortunate to have grown up with a mom and grandma that cooked Cantonese cuisine, to live in a city where authentic Chinese restaurants are easily accessible and where the motherland is just a non-stop flight away. However, the extent of my Asian cooking is adding some sesame oil and green onion, very elementary and far from authentic I’m sure. To think that my grandma and mom’s recipes could very well disappear after my generation makes me very sad. There are so many delicious dishes that I personally love to eat and would never be able to find at a restaurant (Cantonese home cooking is very different from restaurant cooking, and restaurants pretty much never serve home-style dishes). Following in my friend’s footsteps, I too am going to ’embrace my Asian roots’ and learn to cook a few Cantonese dishes so I can keep these precious food traditions alive.
Years ago, my po-po would steam up pans and pans of radish, taro, and sweet rice cakes during Chinese New Year to give away. The days mother came home with a bag full of po-po’s new years cakes is better than my birthday. Both my po-po and I show our love through cooking; if we cook for you it’s because we like you. A lot. I’m 100% sure I inherited her love for eating and sharing food. When my po-po talks about food, her entire soul lights up. “I’m happiest when I’m at the buffet!” she tells me all the time.
I called my po-po and invited her over to my kitchen on the weekend so she could teach me how to make her Hakka-style nian gao. Decades of domestic work have started catching up on her and she no longer has the arm strength to cook all her Chinese New Year dishes. This year, I told her she’d be in charge of directing while I do the physical labour.When I asked po-po what made Hakka-style nian gao different, she said it’s firmer and “sticks to the teeth less”. That firmness comes from the addition of regular rice flour.
This recipe is the result of me eyeballing and haphazardly weighing the ingredients that went in so it is by no means a ‘perfected’ recipe. In true Cantonese cook fashion, the recipe is merely a starting point or rough guideline. Luckily, sweet rice cake has very few ingredients and is very forgiving. My po-po is diabetic so her version is not as cloyingly sweet as the store-bought ones. You can definitely decrease or increase the amount of sugar to your liking. Traditionally, the slabs of rice cake are dipped in egg before being pan-fried but I included a chickpea flour option to keep it vegan.
I hope you enjoy this little slice of my cultural heritage. I filmed some videos while cooking this sweet rice cake and a daikon radish cake (which is the other dish in the background of the photos) so check out our saved Instagram storiesand follow along! Po-po makes a few guest appearances too!
Vegan Nian Gao (Sweet Rice Cake)
Author:Rachel Leung
Recipe type:Dessert, Vegan, Gluten Free
Cuisine:Chinese
Serves:Two 5.5-inch round pans
Ingredients
- FOR THE RICE CAKE
- 400g Chinese cane sugar
- 2½ scant cups water
- 1 bag (400g) glutinous rice flour
- 100g rice flour
- FOR FRYING
- ¼ cup chickpea flour
- ¼ cup + 2 tbsp water
- Pinch of salt
- Coconut or a neutral-flavoured oil
Instructions
- Grease two 5.5-inch round pans liberally with vegetable oil. Set aside.
- Cook cane sugar and water in a sauce pan until all the sugar has dissolved. Cool the sugar water to room temperature.
- Sift both types of rice flour thoroughly into a large mixing bowl.
- Add the sugar water a cup at a time until the mixture reaches 'ribbon' consistency. Depending on the climate and brand of rice flours, you may have leftover sugar water.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two pans Alternatively, you can use another shape and size pan(s), as long as it doesn't exceed ⅞ full. Tap the pans on the counter 2 or 3 times to get any air bubbles out. Then cover loosely with aluminum foil. This is to prevent any water from dripping onto the cakes while steaming.
- Steam* for 1 hour 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool completely then cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Slice the chilled sweet rice cake into rectangles about 1cm thick.
- In a small bowl, mix the chickpea flour, water, and salt until smooth.**
- Heat a dab of oil in a frying pan. Dip the sliced rice cake into the chickpea flour mixture, let the excess drip off, and fry until both sides are golden brown. Serve hot!
Notes
*Usually these cakes are steamed in a double broiler-type set up but if you happen to have a steam oven like me (mine is from Cuisinart), use the Super Steam setting at 300°F and put the pans on the top rack to prevent the bottom from burning.
**Vegetarian option: Dip the slices of sweet rice cake in beaten egg instead of the chickpea flour mixture.
