Text and Photographs by Billy Cheung

During this busy time, we get tunnel vision and only focus on the big day, and forget to have breakfast or lunch. Fortunately, my grandma always makes sure everyone in the family is well fed. For this time of the year, one simple yet amazingly delicious and filling dish she makes is the Shanghai stir fried rice cakes, also known as 炒年糕!

In Chinese, niangao means sticky cake, but it also sounds the same as the words meaning “year” and “tall”. Many associate eating rice cakes during the new year with prosperity and the idea of growing older. Typically, the niangao associated with the Lunar New Year is the Cantonese version, which is a sweet glutinous rice cake that is sliced into pieces and then pan-fried, with a similar texture to mochi, but today I’m going to be sharing my grandma’s savoury Shanghainese version. We’ll be using pork jowl meat since it has an amazing texture that’s similar to bacon, but this dish can be made with vegetarian ingredients too!

Here’s my Grandma’s Recipe for shanghainese rice cakes

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

500g pork jowl meat (or pork shoulder meat)

1 pack of frozen rice cakes, sliced

3 large eggs

8 pieces of cooked bamboo shoots

100g of frozen soy beans

1 head of napa cabbage

1 tbs oyster sauce

1 tbs dark soy sauce

½ tbs chicken bouillon

Salt to taste

Marinade for meat

½ tbs dark soy sauce

½ tbs corn starch

½ tbs Shaoxing cooking wine

½ tbs white pepper