Do you know that
Put Chai Ko (砵仔糕) was first being recorded in Qing Dynasty?
What is this
“Put Chai Ko”, you ask?
It is a
traditional snack originated from Guangdong, and gets popular in Hong Kong. It
is often translated as “sticky rice pudding” or “earthen bowl cake” in English.
To put it simple, Put Chai Ko is a palm-size rice pudding usually made with
white or brown sugar and rice flour, and sometimes (actually most of the time)
mixed with red beans. The batter is usually poured into little porcelain bowls and
steamed until cooked. That leaves the puddings with the shape of the
bowls, hence the name (砵仔糕 literally means “little bowl pudding” in Cantonese).
That sounds
simple to make, right? Not really, if you want to make it well. And it’s
pretty time and resource consuming. According to some traditional Put Chai Ko
makers, they need to choose carefully for the rice, making sure the moisture
and hardness is just right, and then spend a whole morning to prepare the rice
milk
(for the batter). The rice milk is very important because it will
directly affect the appearance, softness and smoothness of the pudding. After all those experiments on the batter,
they have to focus on the steaming process. Imagine spending a hot and wet
summer day in front of the steamers…
Because of
all these hard work needed to make the pudding and the disproportionately low
selling price, less shops / hawkers are selling these nowadays. But don’t
worry, long as you are willing to look (and pay more) for them,
you can always find them in Hong Kong. Not to mention that there are still passionate
Put Chai Ko makers insisting on providing the best to their customers, this
classic snack still has a bright future.
If the
standard sugar flavor is too plain for you, you can try those of pumpkin, green tea or
even sweet potato.
But no
matter what flavor you prefer, always, I mean ALWAYS, hold them with bamboo
sticks.
Don’t “why”
me!
Put Chai Ko
is not really Put Chai Ko without the shape and the sticks, you hear me?
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