Pingxiang Mugwort Rice Cakes

Pingxiang Mugwort Rice Cakes

　　In the folk tradition of Pingxiang, tender mugwort sprouts are often harvested around the Qingming Festival, boiled, and kneaded into glutinous rice flour to make cakes. These mugwort rice cakes are fragrant, soft, and delicious. Made from mugwort leaves and glutinous rice, the two are thoroughly blended to create a texture that is both sticky and tender like glutinous rice, with the aromatic fragrance of mugwort. They have a vibrant green appearance, are tasty, and healthy.

　　Recipe

　　Step one: Boil the mugwort; Use a large pot to bring water to a boil, add a small amount of alkali, and put in the washed mugwort. Do not cover the pot. Keep the water at a gentle simmer over medium-low heat. Use chopsticks to gently stir the mugwort to ensure even heating. Boil until the leaves turn a deep green, and the stems can be pinched and break easily with your fingers. Then turn off the heat. Covering the pot during boiling will cause the mugwort to turn yellow and lose its bright color. Adding alkali helps to remove the bitterness of the mugwort.

　　Step two: Soak the boiled mugwort; Remove the boiled mugwort and soak it in cold water to rinse off the bitterness. Soak for about 12 hours, changing the water two or three times during this period to allow the bitterness to fully seep out.

　　Step three: Chop; After soaking, remove the mugwort, squeeze out the water, and chop it finely. Chop until there are hardly any stems left—this ensures a smooth texture when eating, so you won’t bite into a stem.

　　Step four: Stir-fry; Put the chopped mugwort into a clean pan and stir-fry over medium heat for a while until you can smell the aroma. You can also add a little salad oil. This step is said to enhance the fragrance, but compared to my mom’s previous versions that weren’t stir-fried, I didn’t notice much difference. As an eater, I think this step can be skipped.

　　Mugwort Leaves

　　Step five: Make the dough; Add the stir-fried mugwort to glutinous rice flour and sugar, then pour in freshly boiled water. While pouring, use chopsticks to stir everything thoroughly. Once the temperature drops, knead by hand into a mugwort dough. It is essential to use very hot water to activate the stickiness of the glutinous rice flour, making it easier to form a cohesive dough, which also makes wrapping the filling smoother and improves the final texture and appearance. Don’t add too much sugar—the dough should have just a slight sweetness, as the filling is also sweet. Too much sugar will make it overly cloying.

　　Step six: Wrap; Take a small piece of the prepared mugwort dough, shape it into a small bowl-like form, place it in the palm of your hand, add the filling, seal it, shape it into a round ball, then slightly flatten it. Apply a bit of oil to the bottom, and place it on a piece of pomelo leaf. You can also apply oil to your palm before wrapping. Mugwort rice dough isn’t as stretchy as regular dough, so you’ll need to rely on pressing and molding rather than kneading it in your hands, or it will fall apart and leak filling.

　　Step seven: Steam; Once made, steam them in a pot with cold water. They’ll be ready to eat in about half an hour after the water boils.

　　 Related Knowledge

　　Mugwort leaves have been widely used in Chinese folk traditions for a long time. Some use them for medicinal purposes, others eat them to stave off hunger, and some even regard them as tokens for warding off evil and toxins. Their uses are very diverse. Even today, many elderly people in rural areas hold mugwort leaves in high regard, considering them beneficial. When they see them, they often pick them to dry and keep at home for later use. Mugwort also grows well, especially in the hilly and barren mountainous regions of southern China, where it thrives abundantly. Legend has it that for over a thousand years, during the Dragon Boat Festival, while people eat zongzi and race dragon boats to commemorate Qu Yuan, they also insert collected mugwort leaves on their doorframes to ward off evil and toxins.

　　Pharmacological Effects

　　 In terms of chemical composition, mugwort leaves contain not only the main component of volatile oils but also tannins, flavonoids, alcohols, polysaccharides, trace elements, and other organic compounds. These elements can effectively regulate various needs within the human body. Pharmacological research has found that mugwort leaves have antibacterial, antiviral, anti-asthmatic, anti-cough, expectorant, anti-allergic, hemostatic and anticoagulant, and immune-enhancing effects.