Glutinous Rice Cakes in Sweet Congee 糕粑稀饭

Glutinous Rice Cakes in Sweet Congee (糕粑稀饭) is a sweet breakfast bowl of Qingyan (青岩) old town in Huaxi District (花溪区), Guiyang: small steamed glutinous-rice cakes set in thick rice congee and covered with nuts, seeds and candied toppings.

How it is made

The Huaxi district government says the essence of the dish lies in two things, the slow cooking and the toppings. For the cakes, gaoba (糕粑), glutinous rice is ground into a fine flour, steamed and kneaded into small squares that are soft and chewy. The congee, xifan (稀饭), is ordinary rice cooked slowly over a low flame and stirred all the while until it turns into a thick, smooth paste. To serve, the cakes go into the congee and the bowl is scattered with crushed peanuts, sesame, chopped walnuts, shelled melon seeds, rose sugar and candied winter melon.

Flavour and texture

The congee is dense and smooth, the cakes soft and chewy, and the toppings make each spoonful taste a little different; the district government calls the bowl sweet without being cloying. It is meant to be eaten hot, because as it cools it slowly thickens and loses its smoothness. Those who like it sweeter add more rose sugar, which carries the scent of roses grown in the area.

Where it comes from

In Qingyan, the district government writes, the morning starts with a bowl of Glutinous Rice Cakes in Sweet Congee: it has been the standard breakfast of the old town's residents for decades, a warm bowl against the early chill. Its feature on the town's food names it with braised pig's trotters and fried tofu balls as Qingyan's three signature dishes.