Rice cakes are mostly made of glutinous rice flour, and glutinous rice is a specialty of Jiangnan. In the north, there are sticky grains like glutinous rice, and sticky millet (commonly known as millet) was first introduced in ancient times. This kind of millet hulled powder, after steamed with water, is yellow, sticky and sweet, and it is a delicious food for people in the Yellow River valley to celebrate the harvest. The article "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" published during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty recorded that Beijingers at that time would "eat millet cakes on New Year's Day of the first month and celebrate the New Year's cakes". It is not difficult to see that "New Year's cake" is a homonym of "sticky cake" in the north.
There are many kinds of rice cakes, such as white rice cakes from the north, yellow rice cakes from farmers in Saibei, Shuimo rice cakes from water towns in the south of the Yangtze River, and red turtle cakes from Taiwan Province. Rice cakes have different flavors from north to south.
Steaming rice cakes
There are two kinds of steamed and fried rice cakes in the north, both of which are sweet; In addition to steaming and frying, southern rice cakes are also fried in slices and boiled in soup, which are both sweet and salty. It is said that the earliest rice cakes were used for worshipping gods and ancestors at the New Year's Eve, and later became food for the Spring Festival. The rice cake is not only a kind of holiday food, but also brings people new hope with the passing of the year. As a poem in the late Qing Dynasty said, "People's hearts are high, and food is made in harmony, so that the year is better than the year, so as to pray for the year."
How to steam the New Year's rice cakes? Making tools: juicer, iron basin, flour bag, container, cellophane, measuring cup, measuring spoon,
Ingredients: banana oil, osmanthus sauce, brown sugar, round glutinous rice.
Practice:
Pour three cups of round glutinous rice into the basin, wash it with clear water several times until the water is clear. After washing and soaking, it must be soaked for about eight hours, so that the rice is fully soaked. After draining the water, it must be washed again.
Put the washed and soaked rice into the blender several times, add appropriate amount of water to every two spoonfuls of rice until the rice grains are completely beaten into rice paste, then pour them into the flour bag, tie the bag mouth tightly with a rope, and squeeze out some water by hand first.
Then put it in two layers of thick wooden boards, add the weight of a bucket of water on it until the rice slurry is completely dehydrated, put the dehydrated powder slurry into a big basin, knead it into pieces, and add two or three drops of spices such as banana oil or osmanthus sauce according to your personal taste.
Add three and a half cups of brown sugar, stir the powder paste evenly by hand or blender to become sticky, pour it into a cellophane-paved container and scrape it into a large basin with a scraper, so that it can be put into an electric cooker and steamed with a bowl of water. The electric cooker can also be surrounded by wet towels to avoid steam leakage, and steam it for about an hour until the chopsticks are not stained with powder.
In addition, you can also use traditional steamer, but you must always pay attention to adding cold water to the water in the outer pot at any time to avoid danger. After about an hour, the sweet rice cake can be served.
After the sweet rice cake is cooled and hardened, it must be carefully coated with edible oil to prevent mildew.