Sweet Rice Cake with Red Beans and Coconut Milk

Right now, we are celebrating the Chinese New Year.  According to the tradition, the celebration lasts for 15 days.  It is just like Christmas for American people.  We get together with families and friends, partying, eating, drinking and having a wonderful time.  And we have some traditional holiday food too.  Sweet rice cake is one of them.

Ok, I am crazy about sweet rice cakes.  I have met any sweet rice cake I don’t like.  Sweet, savory, spicy… love them all.  One of my favorites is the traditional sweet rice cake with brown sugar. I add red beans and coconut milk to add more flavor and texture.  And it turns out fantastic! 

You can serve the sliced sweet cake right away, and you can pan fry them like I do.  It is so so so good that we always have to fight for the last piece. O(∩_∩)O~

Ingredients:

1 package of sweet rice flour (16 oz)
1package of red beans (12 oz)
1 3/4 to 2 cups coconut milk
1  to 1 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar  (use more if you have a sweet tooth)
water for boiling

I love red beans.  So I use the whole package here.  You can use half or 2/3 package.

I use light coconut milk from trader joe’s.  It tastes good and contains less fat and calories than the regular coconut milk. O(∩_∩)O~

Directions：

Add water and red beans to a medium stock pot.  Heat it on high heat.  When the water boils, reduce to medium heat and cook for 50 to 60 minutes just until the beans are tender but don’t fall apart yet.

Drain the beans well.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together sweet rice flour and dark brown sugar.

Add coconut milk and whisk just until the dry flour is gone.

With a rubber spatula, fold in cooked red beans.

Spray a round glass bowl, and line up with parchment paper.

Steam the sweet rice cake on a vegetable steamer  in a covered pot. I love to use Lodge 6 quart Dutch oven for steaming.  Steam over medium heat for about 60 to 70 minutes.

Now it is done.

Remove from glass bowl

Remove parchment paper.  Isn’t it beautiful?

You can serve it immediately.  The sweet rice cake might be sticky now.  Dip the knife into cold water with every cut.  It helps to make it easier to slice the sweet rice cake.

It is good the way it is right now.

After refrigerating for a couple days, the cake begins to harden. 

Cut into thick slices.

Heat a cast iron pan over low heat.  Add 1 to 2 teaspoons cooking oil.

Add sliced sweet rice cake.

Flip them when the bottom side is gold brown.

Flip them when the bottom side is gold brown.

Cook until both sides are golden brown.

It takes time to make great pan-fried sweet rice cake.  Heating over low heat means longer cooking time but also means they will get crunchier and crispier on the outside. 

Top with honey if you like.

Now it is time to enjoy!  It is crunchy and crispy on the outside, soft and sweet and sort of gooey on the inside.  O(∩_∩)O~

Jujubes and Sweet Rice cakes

This snack was crazily popular about a decade ago in main China.  Jujubes and sweet rice are among Chinese favorite dessert ingredients.  When you combine both of them together, magic happens.  They taste so good with each other.  The jujubes have a unique sweetness.  The mini sweet rice cakes are soft and slightly chewy.  They are also thinly coated with rock sugar syrup which complements the sweetness from jujubes, bringing the whole snack to a new level.

Ingredients:

14 to 16 big dried jujubes
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
4 to 5 tablespoons whole milk / water
2 to 3 tablespoon rock crystal white sugar
3 to 4 tbalespoons water
water for soaking and steaming

Directions：

Soack the jujubes in warm water for 2 to 4 hours to rehydrate the jujubes.  Change the water twice in between to keep it warm.

Drain the jujubes.  With a small sharp knife, cut each of them open and remove the cores.  Be careful not to cut the date in halves or cut yourself. O(∩_∩)O~

In a bowl, combie sweet rice flour and milk / water.  Whisk and then knead with hands unitl it forms a smooth dough ball.  Sweet rice has no gluten.  So it is normal that the dough might fall apart during kneading process.

Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces.  Roll each of them into a small log and cut each of them into 4 pieces.  So we should have 16 pieces, each for a jujube.

Stuff each jujube with a piece of sweet rice cake.

Place them on a steaming rack.

 Steam on medium high heat for 20 minutes.

When the jujubes are be steaming, I make rock candy / sugar syrup.  Rock candy is made from cane sugar.  It is further exacted and processed so that it is crystalized and has a better sweet flavor.  That is why it is called rock candy / sugar.  It is also a stable and important ingredient in Asian desserts.

In a small pot, combine rock candy / sugar, heat on medium heat until it can thinly coat the back of a spoon.  Stir from time to time to prevent burning. 

Toss the steamed jujubes in rock sugar syrup so that they are evenly coated.

You can serve the jujubes hot or cold.  I personally prefer cold ones.  The sweet rice cakes in the middle develop become more chewy when cooled to room temperature.  I just love to enjoy them that way.

They go well with eithertea or coffee.

Korean Style Mini Sweet Rice Cakes

We love Korean style sweet rice cakes.  If you have never had any kind of sweet rice cakes before, it might be a little hard to explain how great they taste like.  They are mostly dense, al dente and [possibly a little bit chewy, in a good way of course.  Asian people are so found of sweet rice that we use it in all kinds of savory and sweet dishes.  Sweet rice flour and rice four, as well as wheat flours are my pantry staples.

This recipe is adapted from xiachufang.com.  Many thanks to the original author!

Ingredients：

300 g sweet rice flour
200 g rice flour
340 to 350 g boiling water

Directions：

In a large bowl, add both sweet rice flour and rice flour.  Gradually add water while whisking. 

Knead by hand until it forms smooth dough.  Be careful because the dough may be very hot.

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Steam the sweet rice dough on medium heat for 50 to 60 minutes. 

Or cover the bowl with microwave safe lid and microwave on high for 6 to 8 minutes in total.  Heat for 2 minutes first; take it out; knead with a wooden spoon; cover; and send it back to heat for another 2 minutes.  Repeat the process until the whole dough becomes very hot and semi-transparent.

For the next step, please proceed with caution, because the dough is very hot at this point.  Knead the dough on wooden board until it becomes smooth and non-sticky.  The tricky part is that you cannot dust the board or dough with extra flour.  The constant kneading is very important in developing sweet rice cakes’ unique texture.

If you don’t want to do it by hand, go with a stand mixer or bread machine.

I use a bread machine with dual kneading blades.  What a life saver!   It kneads the sweet rice dough for 30 to 40 minutes.  It is very smooth and not sticky at all.

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With a dough scraper / cutter, divide the sweet rice dough into 6 to 8 equal pieces.  Roll each of them into a small log shape, about 1/4 inch in diameter.

Cut them into one and a half long pieces.

You can eat them right away, with any of your favorite dipping sauce. 

Pack any extra sweet rice cakes in a zip-loc bag; and store in fridge or freezer.

Or, you can serve them in Asian style soup.  Blanch them in the soup and serve immediately.  Don’t cook them too long; otherwise they will break apart.  Ok, that is an issue I need to work on in the future about how to make them stay al dente when cooked in soup.

Another one of my favorite ways to enjoy sweet rice cakes is to toast them and then serve with brown sugar sauce.  Continue to read the full recipe here.

Roasted Sweet Rice Cakes

中文： 烤韩式年糕

I posted how to make Korean style sweet rice cakes at home before: ….. You can refrigerate any extra rice cakes in a sealed Ziploc bag for up to a week.  They can also turn into a simple sweet tasty snack in no time!

Ingredients：

15 pieces of mini sweet rice cakes
1/3 to 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (use more if you have a sweet tooth)
2 to 3 tablespoons water

Directions:

Add brown sugar and water to a small stock pot.  Heat over medium heat and stir constantly until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.  Remove from heat.

Skew every three pieces of mini sweet rice cakes together. 

Roast them over charcoal fire or electric burner until the rice cakes are golden brown.  O, it is too cold to go out to use the grill on the deck.  So I DIY a quick and simple BBQ rack over an electric burner in my kitchen. O(∩_∩)O~

Stack the rice cakes together in a big plate or basket.  Sprinkle with brown sugar sauce.

Top the rice cakes with brown sugar sauce and serve them immediately.  They taste the best when hot.

Sweet rice cake balls with black sesame and purple sweet potato

Purple sweet potato is one of my favorite.  Unfortunately we don’t usually see them in American grocery stores.  I will stock up on them whenever I drive to Detroit area where there is a big Asian grocery store that sells all kinds of Asian goodies. 

You can steam, roast, bake or even grill them.  Whatever you can do with pumpkins and sweet potatoes, you can do it with purple sweet potatoes.  Purple sweet potatoes have a denser texture than regular sweet potatoes.   They are starchier, sweeter and I guess healthier. 

I make some sweet rice cake balls and put some purple sweet potatoes.  Ta-dah!  I have a bowl of gorgeous sweet rice cake balls! 

Ingredients for sweet rice cake balls：

1 cup of sweet rice flour
1 teaspoon oil
1 tablespoon sugar
water
1 medium size purple sweet potato, steamed
1/2 cup fermented sweet rice (homemade or available in Asian grocery store too)

Black sesame filling：

1/4 cup toasted black sesame seeds
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons honey
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoon butter

Directions：

Add black sesame seeds and brown sugar to a coffee grinder.  Grind for 20 to 30 seconds.

Microwave the butter on high for 20 to 30 seconds to melt it.  Add honey and ground sesame; mix well and refrigerate until it hardens.   Equally divide them into 20 or 30 pieces.  And roll each into a ball shape.

Peel the purple sweet potato.  Use a fork or food processor to puree it.

Combine sweet rice flour, oil and sugar in a medium bowl.   Gradually add water while whisking with chopsticks or a wooden spoon.  Stop when there is no dry flour left.

Equally divide the sweet rice dough into 20 to 30 pieces and roll each piece into a ball shape too.

Press down sweet rice cake ball with a thumb, add sesame filling, wrap it up and roll into a sweet rice ball again.  Repeat it until all sweet rice cake balls are finished.

Bring a large pot of water to boil on high heat.   Add sweet rice cake balls.  Cook until they float to the top.   Stir gently occasionally. 

Reserve about 2 to 3 cups cooking water.  Add purple sweet potatoes puree and sweet fermented rice.  Cook on medium high heat until it boils.  Serve it immediately with cooked sweet rice cake balls.

Both purple sweet potatoes and fermented rice are quite sweet.  I don’t need extra sugar here.  If you have a sweet tooth, add more sugar to the sweet potato puree.

Isn’t it beautiful?  The black sesame filling inside is a really nice touch. O(∩_∩)O~