Mugwort Rice Cake (艾草粿)

This is a traditional Hakka (客家) pastry, a savory rice cake with truly unique flavors when using the fillings described below. It stands nicely side by side with the Taiwanese Turtle-shaped Red Rice Cake (紅龜粿), a sweet pastry we posted in early December.

Ingredients

Rice Flours- Glutinous (Green)

1. Glutinous Rice Powder, 2 cups, plus an extra 1/4 cup set aside for later use, in [Methods III-Step 6] when kneading the dough (available from any Chinese Market, use the Green Bag shown in the product package picture). 
2. Rice Powder (regular, non-glutinous) 1/2 cup (use the Red Bag in the product package picture).
3. Sugar, 1/4 cup.
4. Mugwort powder, 2/3 Tbsp (艾草粉, available from some Chinese Herbal Medicine stores, 参茸行; see product package below). Note- Mugwort is a weed-like plant that's grown around the world, including Southern California. We finally got hold of the plant. Here is how to process fresh Mugwort: Pick some mugwort leaves, rinse thoroughly, cook in boiling water till soft, drain all the water, squeeze into 2" balls, and freeze for later use. When ready to use, defrost a single ball, grind it into paste form with a food processor (or mince finely with a knife), then mix the mugwort paste into the water that's used with the rice powder below, in Method III.

   

   Mugwort Powder

5. Banana Leaves (available in a frozen package from some Chinese Markets).
6. Vegetable oil, and a brush
7. Internal Fillings I- Dried Turnip Slices (菜脯米), 2 cups. Note- ~6 lbs of Turnip, rinse and brush thoroughly (no need to peel, trim off both ends), julienne-slice into thicker slices, sun-dry or oven-dry into thin slices as shown in the picture below. Note- It takes ~3.5 hours in the oven at 300-degF (spread 6-lbs of turnip slices out onto two half-sheet baking pans, stir and turn with a spatula every 30 minutes till the thicker turnip slices turn into ~1 lb of thin slices, in golden color, ~3.5 cups). According to several online recipes (written in Chinese), it takes 2-3 days under full sun to make this ingredient, a much more energy efficient approach (will try in the summer, and update).

   

   Dried Turnip Slices

8. Internal Fillings II-  Ground Pork ~1/4 lb (Marinate 30 minutes, with cornstarch/1 tsp, rice cooking wine/1 Tbsp, soy sauce/1 Tbsp).
9. Internal Fillings III- Reconstituted Dry Mushroom (10-12 dry mushrooms soaked in water for 1-2 hours, and mince), Dry Shrimp (15-20 small-sized dry shrimps soaked in water for 1-2 hours, each chopped into 2-3 smaller pieces), Shrimp Shells (1-1.5 Tbsp of shrimp shells soaked in water for an hour, and mince). Note- shrimp shells are actually tiny shrimps with virtually no flesh (hence the name, shrimp shells, see product package below). 
10. Internal Fillings IV-  Fried Shallots, 2 Tbsp; Soy Sauce, 2 Tbsp; Rice Cooking Wine, 2 Tbsp; White Pepper, 1/2 tsp; Salt 1/2 tsp; sugar 1 tsp.

    

    Shrimp Shell

Methods I- Prep Work

1. Defrost the banana leaves. Cut banana leaves into 10-12 ovals, each slightly larger than average palm size.
2. Setup the steamer pot, with two layers of steam baskets.
3. Add 1-2 Tbsp of veggie oil into a small plate. Brush a thin layer of veggie oil onto the banana leave ovals, and set them aside.
4. Set the veggie oil and brush aside (to brush on the surface of the rice cake after steaming).

Methods II- Make the Cake Fillings

1. Add 1 Tbsp of Veggie Oil into a flat-bottom cooking pot, turn on medium heat for a minute. Add the ground pork into the pot. Press the ground pork flat with a spatula, then stir, and press flat again. Repeat until the ground pork is no longer clumped together. Take out and set aside.
2. Add 1 Tbsp of Veggie Oil into the cooking pot again, turn on medium heat for a minute. Add  minced dried mushroom, dry shrimp, and dry shrimp shells (Internal Fillings III) into the pot, stir and mix until fragrant.
3. Add the ground pork back into the pot. Stir for a minute.
4. Add 2 cups of Turnip Slices (Internal Fillings I) into the pot, stir and mix.
5. Add all the seasonings in Internal Fillings IV into the pot, stir and mix for 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat, and set aside.

Methods III- Make the Cake Skin

1. In a large mixing bowl, add 2 cups of Glutinous Rice Powder (from Green Package), 1/2 cup of Rice Powder (regular, non-glutinous, from Red Package), and 1/4 cup of sugar.
2. Add 1.25 cup of water into a 2-cup measuring cup. Note- As a general rule, for 2.5 cups of rice powders, use 1.25 cup of water (water is half in volume).
3. Gradually pour ~1 cup of the water into the mixing bowl, while stirring the rice powder mix with a pair of chopsticks (pour up to 1 cup of water, and stop). The rice powder should be in clump form after 1 cup of water is into the mixing bowl. Now hand-knead the rice powder clumps into a dough. Add small amount of water as needed, until the the dough is smooth, and slightly hard (not soft, because more water content will be introduced in the following steps).
4. Take out ~1/10 of the dough and separate this part of the dough into 6-8 smaller pieces, each rolled into a small ball. Boil 1"-deep water in a small pot, and drop the 6-8 small balls into the boiling water. Now, cook till the balls float up. Take the balls out with a skimmer, i.e., a soup ladle with holes. Note- These boiled rice balls, called rice cake core (粿粹, in Chinese), will be rolled back into the bigger dough, to give the dough more structure, and the cake skin more texture (to function similarly as gluten in the flour).
5. Scoop ~1 Tbsp of Mugwort powder into a small bowl, add ~1 Tbsp of water, grind the the powder into the water (with a spoon), until the powder is thoroughly mixed into paste form.
6. Press the larger dough in the large mixing bowl flat, place on top of the flattened dough with- (1) the cooked rice balls (from Step 4), and (2) ~2/3 of the mugwort paste (from Step 5, need to split the paste into 4-5 small pinches). Now roll the dough (with the rice balls and mugwort pinches wrapped inside), till the dough is smooth and the surface of the dough showing tiny green spots. Add dry glutinous rice powder a little a time (up to 1 Tbsp a time), if the dough is too wet from the newly introduced water content. 
7. Separate the dough into 10-12 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball, and then, press each ball into a flat round (2-to-3-inches in diameter). Note- Cover the dough that's not being used with a damp cloth.

Methods IV- Making and Steaming the Cakes

1. Scoop a large spoonful of cake fillings onto the center of the flat round skin. Bunch the flat round tightly together at the top (like how you make Xiao-Long-Baos, with no worries about the nice wrinkles at the top). 
2. Brush a thin layer of veggie oil on one banana leaf oval. Press each bao-shaped dough portion (with filling inside) onto a banana leaf oval. Now shape the bao with your palm into an oval. 
3. Steam the oval-shaped cakes in a steaming pot, in two-layers of steaming baskets, for ~10 minutes. Note- Bring the steaming pot to boil (without steaming baskets). Then add the steaming baskets on top of the steaming pot, and bring the pot to full steam (i.e., till  you can see steam coming out of the top or the side of the lid). Now reduce the heat to medium. Steam for 4-5 minuets, take each steaming basket out and tilt it slightly to drain any vapor/water from the top of the pastry. Now swap the top basket with the bottom basket, bring the pot to full steam again, and steam for another 4-5 minutes. I use a 12-inch steaming pot. Each layer of steaming basket allows 5-6 ovals. 
4. Take the lid off right away, tilt the steaming basket to let vapor fluid flow off from the surface of the cakes. Now, brush a thin layer of veggie oil on the surface of each cake. The outcome from our kitchen is shown at the top of this post.

Methods V- Reheating the Cakes

1. The cakes can be easily stored in fridge for days, and in freezer for weeks.
2. To reheat, defrost (if frozen), and place the cake(s) on a dry frying pan (without oil). Turn on low-to-medium heat, and heat for 3-4 minutes each side.