Qingshui Glutinous Rice with Braised Pork 清水米糕

Qingshui Glutinous Rice with Braised Pork (清水米糕) is the sticky rice made in small tubes in Qingshui District (清水區) in Taichung (臺中), Taiwan, served with pork and a sweet-and-salty sauce. The Qingshui District Office (清水區公所) lists tube rice cake (筒仔米糕) with rolled noodles and cold noodles as local foods that have been made in the district for several decades and that Qingshui people living elsewhere miss most.

How it is made

At Wang Ta (王塔米糕), a long-established Qingshui shop, a copper tube holds a few pieces of specially prepared pork belly, dried oysters and a few dried shrimp, and the rice is finished with a sauce made to a family recipe. TVBS Supertaste (食尚玩家) describes Wang Ta as the only Qingshui rice-cake shop that has kept the dried oysters. At A-Cai (阿財米糕), the other Qingshui shop Supertaste features, the rice is covered with slices of pork in which fat and lean are evenly mixed.

Flavour and texture

The district office describes the rice as fragrant and chewy under its own particular sauce. Supertaste calls the grains separate yet sticky and springy; at Wang Ta the rice tastes salty-sweet and savoury, and the oil of the dried oysters and the pork belly run together, while A-Cai's sauce is sweet and salty and its pork melts in the mouth.

How it is eaten

The Qingshui District Office pairs the rice with a bowl of thick meat soup (肉羹湯).