Guo Laoguan's White Rice Balls

Guo Laoguan's White Rice Balls

　　Guo Laoguan's White Rice Balls

　　White Rice Balls are small, round rice tofu balls made by grinding rice into a paste and stirring it into a batter. Originally, they were just an ordinary street snack in Yiyang. In the early 1980s, after meticulous research and refinement by Guo Laoguan, they became a distinctive local specialty and a renowned flavor snack in Yiyang.

　　Guo Laoguan is very particular about the ingredients he uses to make White Rice Balls. Instead of using broken rice that may contain impurities, he selects high-quality whole white rice as the raw material. He boils and stirs the batter to achieve the perfect consistency—not too thick or too thin—yielding six pounds of White Rice Balls from one pound of rice. The resulting balls are firm, perfectly round, and snow-white in color. Guo Laoguan also pays great attention to the broth and seasonings. When selling White Rice Balls, he never uses plain boiled water for the soup base; instead, he uses the rich, natural broth made from simmering meat bones. The seasonings he uses are also carefully selected, including lard, refined salt, MSG, diced pickled mustard tuber, chili, chopped scallions, fragrant sesame oil, and around seven or eight other ingredients. The final product delivers an aromatic burst of oil and scallion, served hot and spicy, with a delicious and savory taste.

　　Today, Guo Laoguan’s daughter, Guo Jufang, has taken over the family business, carrying forward and even surpassing her father’s craft in making White Rice Balls.