Cantonese Cha Guo Savory Rice Cake

Cantonese Cha Guo (茶粿) or "tea cakes" are a delightful savory dessert made with glutinous rice flour and packed with a savory pork filling of dried shiitake mushrooms, shrimp, and daikon radish.   

These Cha Guo Glutinous Rice Cakes, like our classic Lo Bak Go recipe, have a delicate daikon radish flavor and are typically served during Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival.     

Cha guo rice cakes are popular among Hakka Chinese, also known as kè jiā (客家), which translates to "guest families."  

When I was younger, every little Chinese kid (including myself) who held one of these cha guo rice cakes in one hand and red envelopes in the other smiled like Winnie-the-Pooh with a honeypot!  

Eating cha guo brings back fond childhood memories of Chinese New Year, family dinners, and the annual windfall of red envelopes loaded with auspicious money.  

This cha guo recipe is also one of those Chinese New Year classics that has almost been forgotten, only remembered by our family elders.  

This recipe proved difficult to pin down. It was very difficult to recreate the texture and chewiness of the cha guo I recalled, as well as to write down every measurement and step.  

I pieced together the recipe using some oversimplified verbal advice ("some of this and some of that") from various elders in my family, what I could recall from my own childhood kitchen recollections, and a lot of trial and error.  

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