Huangyuan Rice Cake

Huangyuan rice cake—also called yellow glutinous cake or dahé rice cake—is made from the glutinous dahé rice unique to Gannan, soaked and steamed with lye water filtered from the ash of the huangyuan shrub (vitex), then beaten over and over by hand until golden-hued, chewy and softly fragrant with a distinctive alkaline aroma.

The cake's lineage reaches back to the Tang dynasty, it flourished in Tiancun town of Ganxian under the Song, and was listed as a tribute item in the Ming—hence the saying "a Ming tribute, gold among rice." Its making craft is now a district-level intangible heritage item of Ganxian, an indispensable taste of the Hakka new year in Gannan.

Sliced and then stir-fried, boiled, steamed or deep-fried, it is most classic tossed with cured pork and greens; at new year every household pounds and eats the cake as a symbol of reunion and a good harvest to come.

Its golden colour, resilient chewy bite and the distinctive alkaline fragrance from the vitex-ash lye are what set huangyuan rice cake apart from ordinary glutinous cakes.