Ningbo Food---Cicheng Rice Cake

 

 

慈城年糕 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

The cake has a few hundred years of history. Cicheng (慈城, not Cixi) is an ancient city located to the north of downtown Ningbo. Choicest ingredients and delicate craftsmanship have made it to be famous all over China. The rice cake is called "Nian Gao" locally (年糕, literally "Year Cake", which is a very popular festival food eaten during the celebration of Chinese New Year). It is made of rice of late harvest, which should be cleaned and soaked in fresh water for three or four days. Mill the rice into fine powder with water and later drain out with certain amount of moisture left. Cut it into pieces evenly and steam with high power fire. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Rice cake recipes in Cicheng of Ningbo are many : steamed, stir fried, deep fried with vegetables and pork, and cooked in soup. It can also be eaten sweet, for example, fried rice cake with fine sugar. In the past locals had to dry the rice cake by sunshine in order to achieve long preservation because there was no refrigerator. Many people like to make rice cake into different animal shapes, such as bird, fish and the twelve animal signs in Chinese horoscope as well as many traditional Chinese auspicious signs, which are to pray blessing for good and prosperous future.