Sugar-Dusted Glutinous Rice Fritters 白糖粿

Sugar-Dusted Glutinous Rice Fritters (白糖粿) are strips of sweetened glutinous rice dough fried in oil and then rolled in sugar or other coatings. Tainan's (台南) official tourism website names them, with eel noodles, spring rolls, rice bowl cakes (碗粿) and duck soup, among the local foods to eat in Tainan, in its section on the old city (府城).

How it is made

The Agriculture and Food Agency (農糧署) gives the base as glutinous rice flour, usually milled from round glutinous rice, a short, round, white and opaque grain that is stickier than other rice. The flour is stirred with sugar and hot water, cooled a little and kneaded into dough, which is rolled into long strips and coiled into a spiral. In the deep-fried version the coils go into oil at about 130°C for eight to ten minutes, until they puff up and turn golden, and are then coated as the eater likes: peanut powder, sesame powder or condensed milk.

Flavour and texture

The agency describes the result as crisp outside and soft and chewy inside, like fried mochi (麻糬). The South District (南區) office of Tainan describes a local stall that shapes and fries each piece to order and offers four flavours of coating: plain, brown sugar, sesame and peanut. The same stall also sells golden sweet-potato puffs (蕃薯椪), which are chewier and have the peanut sealed inside.

Where it comes from

In August 2022 the Taiwan Florists Association (台灣花店協會) held its members' meeting in Tainan for the first time, and its table-flower competition took five traditional local foods as themes: coffin bread (棺材板), fruit ice, danzai noodles (擔仔麵), milkfish (虱目魚) and Sugar-Dusted Glutinous Rice Fritters. According to the Tainan city government, one prize-winning arrangement started from the fritters, drawing on the stretch of glutinous rice and on the Qixi (七夕) festival season to form a magpie bridge.