Rice-wrapped Peaches

I am a pure Teochew. Both my parents are Teochews. My paternal grandfather hailed from Swatow, Southern China. And that sums up all I know about my ancestry. Dismal, eh?

Talk about Teochew, and what comes to mind is the humble porridge and steamed fish. Well, according to this article written by Sharon Tan featured here, the Teochews are known for other dishes such as braised duck, orh ni (yam paste), lek tau suan, and a variety of kuih. Heck, I did not even know that lek tau suan was Teochew in origin.

One of my favourite kuih is this :

I don’t know what the masses call it. In Sharon Tan’s article, it was christened ang kat toh or Teochew toh kuih. A quick search in the web resulted in names like Teochew perng kuih, or Teochew peached-shaped dumplings.

My household refers to this kuih in Teochew as bao perng toh. That translates to English as rice-wrapped peaches. It is quite common at home. My mom and her sisters make it often for our own consumption.

Well, making bao perng toh is laborious. Mom usually prepares the filling a day before. The glutinous rice needs to be soaked overnight, and then steamed. Sliced pork is stir-fried with pounded dried prawns, sliced shiitake, beancurd, chestnut, dried radish and Chinese parsley. These are all my favourite ingredients for the glutinous rice as it brings a lot of different textures to the rice. Oh yes, sometimes I will ask for chopped roasted peanuts for the rice. It just complements the rice nicely. But I do suppose the ingredients vary from household to household.

The cooked glutinous rice and stir-fried ingredients are mixed together before they are wrapped in the glutinous rice skin and moulded into the shape of a peach. The glutinous rice skin tears easily and so one needs to get the exact consistency of flour to water. The shaped dumplings are them steamed, after which they are glazed with peanut oil.

The dumplings can also be pan-fried. The crispy, burnt skin makes them even tastier. I remember that when I was small, my maternal grandmother would pan-fry the dumplings for me and serve it with her own home-made sweet soy sauce. I still remember the taste of that caramelized soy sauce. No one at home makes it anymore. When I talk about it, Mom only smiles nostalgically. Even she is not really sure how that yummy soy sauce is concocted.

Well, I don’t really fancy buying rice-wrapped peaches from kuih vendors. I suppose I get disappointed too often. Theirs are often with skin so thick, and texture-less filling. The best dumplings are still home-made.