stir fried nian gao

a close up pic of the dish I made! soo good..

The last time I was in Chinatown, to buy more baby turtles (not for turtle soup!), Jeff and I stopped by a chinese store, to peruse their chinese-snack selection.

During our perusing, I picked up a bag of dried nian-gao (asian rice cakes), and was like "whoa! these are good!"

Jeff has mentioned in the past that he also really likes this stuff, and it was only 59 cents, so we grabbed a bag.

Now I regret not buying 2 or 3 bags.

It's so delicious!

So those who don't know, "nian2 - gao1" is this white.. sticky... rice thing. (english name is just "sticky rice cake". It is defined as both "sticky cake" and "year cake"; a play on words, since the pronunciation of "nian2" means both 'sticky' and 'year' in Chinese, and the Chinese typically eats this stuff during New Years.

Anyways. On with the delicious recipe!

Stir Fried Nian Gao:

Ingredients:
- 1 pound of sliced chicken meat (or pork)
- 1 bag of dried nian gao (14 oz)
- 2 stalks of green onion (chopped)
- small handful of chinese broccoli (chopped)
- 3 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 cloves of chopped garlic
- water
- 2 tsp sugar
- feel free to add any other vegetable of your choice (ie: carrots, bok choy, etc)... My dish would have included more vegetables, if I actually had a car to go grocery shopping.....

Preparation:

1. This type of nian gao cannot be cooked straight out of the bag. There are the frozen kind and fresh kind, that can be. But I didnt buy that kind. So there.
2. Soak nian gao in water overnight. You could soak for more than 1 night. And if you do (i did), then change the water after each night

Cooking Instructions:
1. When nian gao is done soaking, heat up a pot of water to boiling and dump in nian gao.
2. Add a few drops of veggie oil into the pot and stir, to prevent the nian gao from sticking to each other.
3. When nian gao is at this desired tenderness (al dente!), drain.
4. In a skillet, add some vegetable oil. When oil is hot, add chicken. Throw in garlic
5. Cook chicken and garlic on high, until chicken is almost cooked thoroughly.
6. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, and some water.
7. Add the nian gao into the skillet mixture.
8. Make sure there is enough water to cover the nian gao. If not, then add more water. duh!
9. Add sugar into mixture, and stir
10. Stir mixture occassionally, ensuring that the sauces gets mixed evenly, and the nian gao doesn't stick. But don't stir too vigorously either. The nian gao could break.
11. If the mixture isn't salty enough, add more oyster sauce.
12. Throw in vegetables.
13. Let mixture cook on medium-high heat, still stirring occasionally, until the veggies are cooked, the gravy dries up a bit (it should not look like a soup), and the gravy is a consistency that you desire.
14. If you don't know if your dish is done, or if you did it right. just compare it to the pictures of my dish! (refer to above and below). If it looks like mine, then you did it right =)



Here is my finished masterpiece:





please excuse my cheesey colorful plates