Pearl Yuan

Pearl Yuan

　　Pearl Yuan, white as pearls, is a famous snack from Leshan, typically served with white tea from Mount Emei. The sticky rice cake has a pleasant texture and offers a unique flavor. To make it, first wash the glutinous rice to remove dirt and soak it for two days until it swells. Then, place 250 grams in a bowl — dye half of it slightly red with a touch of food coloring, and grind the rest into rice flour. Knead the flour into a paste, wrap in the filling, and shape it into a pagoda-like form. The top of the Pearl Yuan is coated with white, soaked glutinous rice, while the sweet part is decorated with red glutinous rice. Steam until cooked. It is served together with white tea. Its characteristics are a pearly, translucent appearance and a sweet, delicious taste.

　　Pearl Yuan is a famous snack with over eighty years of history, passed down through three generations. Before 1910, in Guan County (now Dujiangyan City), there was a skilled and innovative pastry chef named Zhang Herong. At that time, it was customary at banquets to serve one or two sweet dishes after two or three main courses to refresh the diners' palates. When Chef Zhang prepared a banquet, he would serve the guests a steamed glutinous ball, two or three times larger than an ordinary tangyuan, covered with bright, snow-white glutinous rice grains, topped with a single fresh red cherry. This is what we now know as the modern Pearl Yuan.