Renhuai Blood Taro Cake

Renhuai Blood Taro Cake

　　     Blood Taro Cake is a unique ethnic food from Renhuai City. It has a purplish-red color and can be steamed, boiled, grilled, or pan-fried. Delicious and visually appealing, it boasts excellent color, aroma, and taste, as well as a soft texture that doesn't stick to your teeth.

　　    It is said that Blood Taro Cake originated during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty, when people from Suzhou migrated to Renhuai. During a pig-slaughtering ceremony to honor their ancestors, a Miao woman surnamed Tao accidentally dropped corn flour into the pig’s blood. She cooked it up and found it delicious. From then on, she began making Blood Taro Cake using grain flour and pig’s blood to honor ancestors and serve at home. Since some Miao people still use Blood Taro Cake in ancestral worship rituals, this story is likely credible. If true, the dish has existed for over 400 years. (Renhuai)

　　    How to Make Renhuai Blood Taro Cake:

　　    1. Rinse sticky rice and soybeans, soak them in water for four hours, then grind them into a mixed paste and set aside.

　　    2. Rinse glutinous rice, soak it for four hours, then steam it until it is about 70–80% cooked and set aside.

　　    3. Mix the ground soybean and sticky rice paste with the partially steamed glutinous rice, along with an appropriate amount of brown sugar. Stir well, then shape the mixture into rice balls. Wrap each ball in bamboo shoot leaves or large bamboo leaves, tie them tightly with string, and place them in a large wooden steamer. Steam for over ten to twenty hours, then remove the leaves before serving.