One of the special traditional foods that my grandma knew how to make was Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice, also known as Jiu Niang or 甜酒釀, a fresh, sweet and slighty winey fermented rice with a porridge like texture. She would make tons of the stuff and pass it out to all the family but no one liked to eat it as much as me. I loooved the stuff and would eat it slowly, one delicious creamy spoonful at a time, from a huge jar in the fridge.
Now I know that my childhood fondness for Chinese fermented rice was probably due in a large part to my predilection for the tastes and flavors of alcoholic beverages as this fermented rice is slightly boozy. (Ummm...mom, dad, what the hey?!) But I digress from the topic at hand.
The point here is that I still love this stuff and I finally got up the gumption to try to make Chinese Fermented Rice at home. Guess what? It was easy peasy and it is so d*mn good when freshly fermented! I'm over the moon...I can have all the Jiu Niang I want forever!
Besides the joys of food nostalgia, nowadays I know more about food and how important eating naturally fermented foods are to your health and body. Naturally fermented foods are enriched during the breakdown process with all kinds of amino acids, vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds that your body needs and probably doesn't get enough of with all the processed foods we eat nowadays.
I think that we should all be eating a bit of fermented food everyday. And Jiu Niang is going to be a house favorite for that spot, I'm sure.
It's really pretty easy to make. The only part that might require a wee bit of work is locating the special yeast, Chinese rice wine starter 酒麴, also known as shanghai wine yeast balls 上海酒餅丸. This same type of yeast is used to make Chinese wines and spirits. This wine yeast ball is not replaceable by regular yeast, the taste is very different.
We got our wine yeast balls easily at the dried foods vendors at our local wet market (you have to ask specifically for them though) but if you can't find these at your local asian grocer's you can get your chinese wine yeast balls here.
Glutinous rice 糯米, also known as sticky rice or sweet rice, is used to make fermented rice. It is not the same as regular rice. There are different kinds of glutinous rice, some shorter and some longer. What I've heard is that the shorter glutinous rice will make for a sweeter fermented rice and the longer glutinous rice will make for a more aromatic fermented rice.
Wash the rice grains a few times to rinse away most of the starch and then steam cook the glutinous rice until tender and cooked all the way through. You can check doneness by biting into a grain of rice, the center of rice should be cooked through.
After this point you must make sure that all your bowls, jars and utensils are sterilized (with a bit of boiling water) before use and that your hands are very, very clean. This is to avoid any strange contaminants that could ruin the fermentation of whole batch of rice.
The wine yeast balls need to be crushed to powder before mixing with the cooked glutinous rice so here I'm are banging at the yeast balls with one end of my rolling pin. If you have a mortar and pestle that would work perfectly here. But don't worry the balls are not that hard to break apart.
Once you mix your cooked glutinous rice with your ground up yeast balls and a wee bit of clean water you can pour it all into your fermenting container. This should be a sterilized jar of ceramic or glass with a lid that is not airtight or can be left not completely closed. This will allow the fermenting gases a way to escape.
You can also use a proper fermenting jar with an airlock device that lets gas escape while keeping air out, an awesome and handy device in my opinion if you want to ferment stuff.
If using a fermenting container that is not see through, it is a good idea to poke a hole, again using very clean utensil, all the way down to the bottom of your rice, as you can see in the photo above. This allows you to easily assess the fermentation by checking if the hole is filled with liquid. When the hole fills up with liquid, your fermentation is very close to finished. If your container is clear you don't need the hole as you can check the liquid level from the sides as you can see from the photo at the top of this post.
Put your fermentation jar in a warm place to ferment, easy enough in the summer but in the colder months you could stick it next to your space heater like I did.
Okay, enough about the making, let's get on to the eating! Here, below is a bowl of the finished fermented rice. See how creamy and liquid and yummilicious it looks. And how to describe this unique taste? Well, it's ricey with a slightly sake like flavor (alcohol content of 1.5-2%) while still really fresh and sweet tasting. The rice grains are soft and almost dissolved in the clear sweet broth of the fermentation.
What else can I say? Really it's like nothing else and similar to other unique tastes, at first it may be a surprise when you taste it but watch out! This Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice 甜酒釀 will creep up on you and you will find yourself as addicted to it as I am!
Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice
自製甜酒釀
(makes 1 liter) Soaking time: 4 hours Prep time: 3 mins
Cook time: 30 mins Fermenting time: 2-5 days
(makes 1 liter) Soaking time: 4 hours Prep time: 3 mins
Cook time: 30 mins Fermenting time: 2-5 days
Ingredients:
- fermenting jar 1/2 gallon
- 500g glutinous rice 糯米, around 4 cups
- 1 rice yeast ball 上海酒餅丸 (10-15g)
- 1/2 cup boiled water, cooled to room temperature
Directions:
Soak rice 4-5 hours or overnight. Drain and rinse a couple of times until the rinsed off water is pretty clear. Drain off water and then add fresh water to just cover the rice. Steam over high heat for 30-40 mins until rice is completely cooked. Let cool completely.
Crush the yeast ball to powder. Put cooked rice, yeast ball powder and around 1/2 cup cool boiled water into a sterilized mixing bowl and use a sterilised utensil to mix completely, loosening the rice grains to separate them as much as possible. You can use your hand here to mix, just be sure to clean and dry your hands really well before mixing.
Pour into your sterilized fermenting jar. If using a non transparent jar, use a sterilized utensil like a chopstick to poke a finger sized hole into the center of the rice all the way to the bottom. Cover the jar, but leave a small gap so that fermenting gases can escape. Place in the warmest place for 2-5 days, around 86º-95ºF or 30º-35ºC.
The fermentation is done when rice is very wet and liquidy and moves around freely when you gently shake the jar. If you have a hole, the fermentation liquid should fill the hole up. If you can see into the sides of your jar, there should be 1 1/2" to 2" of liquid at the bottom of the jar (see photo, very top of post). The texture of the fermented rice should be like a thick rice congee or porridge and the taste should be very sweet and fresh, ricey and slightly alcoholic.
Stir the fermented rice with clean utensil and store in the fridge for up to a month. To serve, use clean utensil to spoon from jar.
Yummilicious Things to make with Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice:
- Tong Yuan Dumplings in Osmanthus Sweet Soup
- Chinese Fermented Rice Poached Egg Soup 酒釀蛋
- Homemade Face Mask - Because of the fermentation, this rice is chock full of enzymes and other goodies for your skin. I've tried it and it's fabulous!
Glutinous Rice at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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Looks great, I love Jim niang! Can you share which wet market you found the yeast balls at? I used a brand of yeast that was rectangular shaped and I wasn't too thrilled with the results, I would like to try with the round shape ball yeast. I'm living in Kowloon but work Island side so willing to travel to find it!
ReplyDeleteHi Harry and Dee Dee - I got my yeast balls at the wet market in Kennedy Town. You will have to ask for it, it's not on display. Best of luck on your next batch of Jiu Niang! ~ellen
DeleteAmazon carries virtually everything I need for whatever I'm making.Even weird stuff you can't find anywhere else.
DeleteI sent it as Anonymous, I don't have a profile yet.I hope it helps, Christina S.
DeleteThanks for the shopping tip Christina! ~ellen
DeleteRice wine made like this has a pretty high Abv. At least 10%, and store bought hitting 18-20%. (The broth at least is that high, the rice it self would be much lower abv) Also, you can just use a big spoon full of the fermented rice to start another batch of rice fermenting. Very Cool!
ReplyDeleteHi Stephanie - Maybe you're thinking of a different kind of rice wine? This fermented rice only has 1.5-2% abv and you can only just barely taste the alcohol when you eat it. ~ellen
DeleteHi Ellen
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing pic and recipes my hubby Greg and I love foods that are fermented & recently bought of a bottle of Hsueh Hwa Niang in a store, it's from Taiwan and are excited to try our own. Can I use this to start my first batch. I am not sure whether I could find the yeast balls. I am in Queesland Australia. thanks
Hey Michelle - that's a great question! My guess would be that you could use a bit of fermented rice as a starter for a fresh batch, just like with bread starter. The fermentation would probably take a bit longer. Please let me know how it turns out, I would love to know! ~ellen
DeleteHey this is great recipe. I do have a question that might sound silly, do you heat up the rice when served from the fridge our is this dish served cold?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Not silly at all! Fermented rice is always served warmed up. That way the subtle flavors really come through. ~ellen
DeleteInstead of streaming the rice, can I just cook it in a rice cooker?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Ricky
Hi Ricky - no problem you can steam it, just use 5 cups water and let it soak for half hour before cooking in rice cooker. ~ellen
DeleteHi - I was wondering if Chinese Yeast balls can be used in place of regular dry yeast in bread baking? I have managed to find yeast balls but cannot find regular yeast for baking :)
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Wow, interesting question. I think yes, but that it would be as an experiment. Apparently folks have made bread before using wine yeast, which is different from chinese yeast balls but also used for making alcohol. This chinese yeast has different flavor from regular yeast, though it is quite a nice ricey flavor. And it produces more alcohol than your average yeast, so the again the flavors would be different, possibly more complex. If you do decide to try, keep an eye on dough and keep in mind that it may behave slightly different from regular yeast. And please let me know how it turns out, I would love to know! ~ellen
DeleteHi Ellen, I don't suppose you've bought the yeast balls recently? I've been in every dried goods store in North Point, but failed to find any... I could try KTown, but wondered if it's a city wide shortage. I would love to try making this!
ReplyDeleteHi antoniahk - I usually get mine in KTown wet market but the last time I bought was quite a while ago. It would be weird if there was a shortage on these like there has been with regular yeast. Definitely try making this fermented rice, it's seriously deliciously addictive. My little girl keeps asking me to make more! ~ellen
DeleteThank you! I finally found the rectangular yeast blocks at a Shanghainese shop, and just started a jar this evening. Hope it works! I'll look in your wet market if I don't get good results with this one.
DeleteIs it the Shanghainese food shop in Causeway Bay? If so I didn't know that they sold it. If not, please let me know where your shop is, I love discovering new food shops! ~ellen
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