The food in hometown is always delicious, this is the sentiment of many people.

There is a traditional snack in Hainan called Yiba. If you have a Hainanese friend, if you ever ask her about Hainan’s special snacks, Yiba will definitely be one of her answers. Yiba has a unique status in the hearts of Hainanese people.

The raw materials for making Yiba Yiba are all locally sourced. Yiba uses coconut, one of the representative fruits of Hainan. There are many types of coconuts in Hainan. Coconuts are divided into two types: green coconut and yellow coconut according to the color of the coconut surface.

Green coconut is more suitable for drinking water, while yellow coconut is more suitable for eating coconut meat, pressing coconut oil, and stewing coconut.

The coconut filling of Italian cake is made of yellow coconut meat, supplemented by sesame, peanuts and winter melon sugar.

The filling is fragrant, sweet, and crispy, but is wrapped in soft and glutinous rice skin. You may worry that it will be too sweet when you open it, but the moment you bite into it, you will find that the light glutinous rice skin has wrapped the sweet filling, and the two have a mixed taste.

Just right, not too sweet, not bland.

You can also add other ingredients to the yuba to create a variety of flavors. I once had a mugwort yuba in the Old Street Cultural Teahouse.

The outer layer of rice cake is mixed with the fragrance of mugwort leaves, which is soft and non-sticky to the teeth.

Coupled with the sweet shredded coconut, sesame, peanut and winter melon candy filling, one bite will fill your mouth with sweetness. The glutinous texture of the cake and the bitter taste of mugwort leaves can wash away the heat of midsummer.

Mugwort Yiba is made by washing mugwort leaves and soaking them in water for 24 hours to remove the bitter taste.

Mix moxa leaf juice and glutinous rice flour into a larger basin, add water and knead it into a dough. Set aside. Saute peanuts and sesame seeds in a wok until fragrant. Add white sugar and crush them together. Then add shredded coconut and some brown sugar and stir.

Evenly, wrap the stuffing into a flat ball like making glutinous rice balls, sandwich it with jackfruit leaves on both sides, and finally steam for fifteen minutes.

Remember that mugwort cake will harden and become unpalatable over time, so eat it while it is soft.

It is said that Yibi has a history of more than 300 years in Hainan. If you come to Hainan, you must try it to see the unique charm of Yibi that has been preserved for 300 years.

Of course, there are many more traditional delicacies in Hainan, all of which are worth trying.