Rice Cakes: Varieties, Recipes, Tips

[tommy]

i just picked up some sliced rice cake. these are basically pasta-like slices, about 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter (oblong), made of rice. they are slightly chewy and quite satisfying. i've never seen these other than at a shanghai place in NJ (china 46), where they are served with shrimp in what is a brothy, garlicy "sauce" (the sauce tastes as though it has butter, as it's so rich, but i'm assured by the restaurant that it doesn't). it seems to me that they really take on the flavor of whatever it is that they might be cooked in, he said, ending a sentence in a preposition.

i'm wondering what i can do with these things. any ideas?

[Jinmyo]

Mwahahahaha, tommy. I love these things.

I can't remember what the Chinese name is but in Korean they're called tteok. The Japanese seem only to make mochi cakes out of pounded rice.

Tteok are great in tteok-guk (soup).

Soak them for at least eight hours. Bring them up to a simmer in even that soaking water or some stock or dashi with ginger. Add some meat or fish or tofu or fishcake and some Korean hot bean paste. Throw some sesame seeds or gomasio overtop and some slivered scallion. Ladle it out and break an egg into the bowl.

[tommy]

mine need no soaking, jinmyo. in fact, they're relatively soft right out of the bag.

and, in the time since i started this thread, i've come up with a perfectly good way of making these, and once that approximates the wonderful flavor found at China 46...

oil, garlic, chicken stock, a bit a sugar, a bit of sesame oil, a bit of soy, garnished with green onion (although garlic shoots might be interesting). this took about 5 minutes start to finish. i'm quite pleased with the results.

[Jinmyo]

tommy, that's great!

I've only had them that fresh when I've made them. Usually I buy them frozen in long sticks at a Korean grocers. And I have a few bags of dried from a Chinese shop. The dried ones are for emergencies but the instructions on the bag say to soak for three days. A slow emergency.

There are so many great things you can do with these tteok.

They're great fried with shrimp, mushrooms, spinach, and chiles.

[tommy]

this is the stuff:

[Jinmyo]

Cool. They're Korean tteok. They look great, tommy.

Do try some Korean chile paste with them some time.

[tommy]

good. i was hoping they were what you thought they were. the egg sounds interesting. i know egg plays an interesting roll in korean and japanese cooking, but have yet to use it.

Edited January 5, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Jinmyo]

Yes, raw egg is famously used as a dipping sauce. One just whips it up in the bowl with hashi. Dropping it into a soup or stew of course cooks the egg a bit. But the point is the lusciousness of the taste and texture of the yolk. Since much Korean and especially Japanese food uses oil only as a condiment, the egg gives that "big molecule" fat hit.

[tommy]

i happen to have an egg in the fridge and i will dump it in when i actually prepare this dish this evening. cool.

[Jason Perlow]

Tommy: You stir fry them as you would any other chinese noodle.

The korean ones are typically used in soups, Mandoo Guk is a popular one.

China 46 serves a great stir fried rice cake Shanghai style with pork. Try it the next time you are there.

[eatingwitheddie]

A GENERAL OUTLINE FOR PREPARING SAUTEED RICE CAKES

Sliced rice cakes are a food eaten all year round but are especially eaten during the New Year (which is coming up in just a few weeks).

From a cooking point of view they are treated like those fat chow fun rice noodles. That is to say they require no boiling in water or preliminary cooking. They just need to be heated and flavored and tossed with whatever ingredients, meat, veg and seasonings that are to your taste.

When just made rice cakes are soft and pliable but become firmer after chilling (sitting in the fridge). I might suggest a brief stay in the microwave as a means of softening them or another good and the traditional approach is to put a little oil in a very well preheated pan and put in the cakes, stirring them from time to time to keep them from browning and heating them up for a couple of minutes. I like to use my non-stick wok for this purpose. After heating you should then remove them from the wok and proceed to precook any meat or veg that requires it, remove that from the wok, and then start to make a seasoning sauce. Typically we might saute a little ginger, garlic and scallion, return the rice cakes, meat, and veggies to the wok, and then saute and season until everything is heated through, a minute or two. Flavorings should include a sprinkling of sherry or rice wine, salt (make sure to use enough or the dish will be bland), MSG (if you like), a little sugar (1t maybe), some white pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of soy. Taste the dish as you're tossing it to balance the flavors. It should be dry without any liquid sauce. Should you like it hot/spicy add some fresh or dried chile with the ginger and other herbals or some chile paste if you prefer that flavor. A drop of sesame oil right before plating will make your dish smell seductive.

In Shanghai restaurants, which is where rice cakes are usually available, they typically make a saute using shredded pork, a little spinach, some shrimp and a little salted Shanghai cabbage.

[Jinmyo]

What are they called in Mandarin and Cantonese, Ed?

[torakris]

Thanks to everyone for educating me!

I had no idea these little flat rice cakes were even used in Chinese cooking. I had never seen or even heard of them before!

I usually used the Korean ones and they always went into soups or hot pot type of dishes. Now I can stir fry them!?! The possibilities are endless.

They used to have these same types of pounded oval rice cakes in Japan after WWII, according to my Father in law the country lived on these for years when food was scarce. Then they disappeared from sight because no one wanted to eat them anymore. I can't rember the Japanese name for them now but just a little while back we had them in a chankonabe (the hot pot of sumo wrestlers) and he told me they are be found in the shitamachi areas of Tokyo. These are the very old areas that seem to survive despite all the change going on around them. He said that people eat these rice cakes for nostalgic reasons now.

There is another type of rice cake that is also quite popular in hotpots and these are long cylinder with a hole in the middle, about 5 to 6 inches long. The rice isn't pounded as finely as a normal rice cake so it is a little chunky, I can't remember what these ones are called either, but they are very good.@ they are called kiritanpo, trying to get a picture, be back soon.

Back again, here's a link

http://www.media-akita.or.jp/akita-shoku/k...kiritanpoE.html

Edited January 5, 2003 by torakris (log)

[jhlurie]

Mwahahahaha, tommy. I love these things.

Ditto. I absolutely love them. I'd never had one until two or three years ago, but they've become one of my favorites since then.

Actually I like the disc shaped ones more than the long ones which look like cheap string cheese.

Edited January 5, 2003 by jhlurie (log)

[tissue]

What are they called in Mandarin and Cantonese, Ed?

In mandarin they are called "nien gao".

[Miss J]

Coooooool. I think I remember eating these in a hotpot in Japan years ago.

Yum.

[Jinmyo]

Thanks, tissue!

[Bond Girl]

These are Korean rice cakes. The chinese version of Nien Gao typically comes in a block that you slice. It can be sweet with toasted coconuts and ground peanuts. Some even comes wrapped arounf red bean paste. Or, it can be bought plain, which you pan fry and dip in soy sauce with chilli oil.

[Akiko]

If you get really fresh soft ones, you can deep fry them, they turn into little football shaped puffs... I add them last to a stir fry with oyster sauce and chilis... YUM!

But the Korean standard of Duk bokki (spelling is probably very wrong) is always good too... try stir frying with bulgogi meat, green onions and a generous dollup of gochuchang (also spelled very wrong) and another generous dollup of sugar... YUM YUM YUM.

Edited January 6, 2003 by Akiko (log)

[tissue]

I like the korean version at the end of shabu shabu when they add the rice cakes to the broth along with some of that chili paste/sauce. That sauce has heat along with sweetness.

[trillium]

I think you could also use them as a somewhat chewier substitute for lontong in Indonesian cooking.

regards,

trillium

[Jinmyo]

Trillium, that's so.

But lontong are their own delightful subject. I fry the slices, sprinkle with gomasio, and eat them with bulgogi. How "fusion" is that?

[amamus1]

I was born (1932) and raised in China as a German, and immigrated to the US at the age of 15. I have many delicious food memories and have been able to recreate most of them in my kitchen here. There is one item that eludes me. I have tried and failed many times, and have not found any source to help me with this.

Here is the background. I start by making sweet fermented rice wine using the wine yeast balls that can be obtained in most Chinese groceries. (If any one is interested in the process, I'll be glad to describe it.) The product of this fermentation in about 2-5 days is a sweet rice "soup" with a low alcohol content. Since no sweetener is used, the sweetness, as well as the alcohol, are created by the yeast. This step is easy.

In the next step, the rice is strained from the liquid, and I assume that the rice is formed into round cakes and then, "magically," the cakes become covered with a sweet white bloom, almost a crust, and the inside is moist and sweet and delicious with just a hint of alcoholic residue. So far, my every attempt has ended up as moldy, vile garbage.

I am searching for that "magic" process. Any suggestions?

Edited April 3, 2003 by amamus1 (log)

[trillium]

I don't have help for you on your rice cakes, but I'd love to hear how you make your wine. We have the yeast balls and the rice, but the conversation I had with the grannie describing how to do it didn't get written down right away, and I'm foggy on the details.

I'll ask my friend to ask her mum about them...do you have the Cantonese name for them?

regards,

trillium

[eatingwitheddie]

I don't  have help for you on your rice cakes, but I'd love to hear how you make your wine.  We have the yeast balls and the rice, but the conversation I had with the grannie describing how to do it didn't get written down right away, and I'm foggy on the details.

I'll ask my friend to ask her mum about them...do you have the Cantonese name for them?

regards,

trillium

About the cake: I unfortunately don't know anything. Sounds really interesting and I'd love to hear more about it, hope someone knows. One thought I have is that wine rice has such a broken-down soft texture, that I find it hard to believe that it could be shaped into anything. So my thought and/or question is: perhaps the wine rice was mixed with something else, like some regular white or sticky rice.

About fermented wine rice:

It's a very long time (30 years ago) since I have made fermented wine rice. And then I only made it once. It came out great. But ever since then I have been buying it. That's because it's sold aleady prepared. Often I find it near the fresh noodles in an open dairy case in one of the better stocked Chinese groceries. It's cheap and it's good.

I love cooking with wine rice. It gives great character to some of the great classic Szechuan recipes. I particularly enjoy it in Braised Fish in Hot Bean Sauce (do ban yu), and Jumbo Shrimp with Chile Sauce (gan sau min sha).

To make it at home I believe you crush the yeast ball to a smooth powder and then mix it with the raw sweet rice. The rice is then steamed, cooled and alllowed to rest for a day or more. I'm a little fuzzy on the details. As I remember it there was a special effect involved. Once left out at room temperature, the rice with its yeast activated, takes off. It turns the normal looking steamed rice into a large soupy affair, with the liquid in it seeming to magically materialize from thin air.