Xiantao Rice-Meal Steamed Vegetables 蒸菜
Xiantao Rice-Meal Steamed Vegetables is featured among the local specialties of Hubei.
Xiantao Rice-Meal Steamed Vegetables (蒸菜) are the vegetable member of Mianyang three steams (沔阳三蒸), the steamed dishes of Xiantao (仙桃) in Hubei, which was Mianyang county until 1986. The set is generally taken to combine one steamed meat, one steamed fish or other aquatic food and one steamed vegetable, and its hallmark is a coating of ground rice. The Hubei provincial government listed Mianyang three steams as provincial intangible cultural heritage in June 2011.
Ingredients
Li Heming (李和鸣), a provincial-level inheritor of Mianyang three steams, names garland chrysanthemum steamed with river snails (螺蛳蒸茼蒿), a two-vegetable taiji steam (太极蒸双蔬) and rice-meal steamed lotus root (粉蒸莲藕) as the representative vegetable dishes. When a visiting group from the Wuhan metropolitan area tasted the three steams in Xiantao, rice-meal steamed taro was served with steamed pork and catfish, and one member found the taro soft and sweet.
Lotus root appears in Xiantao's own origin story. The city government relates the legend that the wife of Chen Youliang (陈友谅), a rebel leader at the end of the Yuan dynasty, mixed meat, fish and lotus root with rice meal, set them in bowls in a wooden steamer and steamed them over a fierce fire to reward his soldiers.
How it is made
Vegetables take a different coating from meat. Li Heming told China Youth Net (中国青年网) that poultry and meat are coated in a five-spice cooked rice meal, while vegetables and aquatic foods need a finer raw rice meal. At a 2014 demonstration at Wuhan Business University (武汉商学院) he said the meal should be ground from good indica rice, and that pumpkin and garland chrysanthemum must not be seasoned first: the raw rice meal goes on in several portions so that it coats evenly, the vegetable is steamed, and only then is it seasoned. After 25 minutes the pumpkin was steamed and mashed; his advice is to add a little water once the dish is seasoned, or it soon dries out after leaving the steamer.
How it is eaten
In the version Li cooked at Wuhan Business University, rice-meal steamed pumpkin and garland chrysanthemum lay yellow and green on a round plate in the pattern of the eight trigrams (八卦). In the version China Youth Net watched, white radish and pumpkin were steamed separately, mashed, shaped into an orange-and-white taiji figure and steamed again; the reporter found it light and delicate. The Xiantao city government says that in Xiantao no banquet is complete without steamed dishes.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- A common version of Xiantao Rice-Meal Steamed Vegetables · 蒸菜常见做法参考照片。Photo: Yinsanhen · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited.
