Pumpkin Nian Gao with Coconut & Gula Melaka
As we say goodbye to Christmas, we usher in the new year. For much of the west, there isn’t a quintessential new year’s dish, but for the Chinese, our Chinese New Year brings in a whole slew of festive flavours and dishes of decorum.
One of the CNY classics is nian gao (年糕). I wrotea piece on these festive rice cakes back in 2018, but for the uninitiated, nian gaos are dense, brown blocks of cake, made with glutinous rice flour, water, and sugar, cooked until caramelised. A classic method of preparation for these rice cakes is to steam them until sticky, then cut them up and toss the pieces through coconut flakes and brown sugar. Sounds simple, but to us Chinese, it’s festive af.
But this year, this new decade, I discovered a new variant to the classic that blows the old out of the water. I say discover, but really, I learned of it through my most trusted, most reliable source for recipes and cooking ideas—my mom. As they say, 年年高升, meaning rising to greater heights every year. So in the spirit of the adage, momma and I are amping up the classic nian gao, with a variant that’s a chip off the old block, but with some stellar substitutes.
First off, the nian gao itself. Instead of the typical molassesy nian gao—kept on the shelves of Chinese herb shops for months until they’re dusty, only to be brought out in the one month before the new year’s before its kept again for a year—we’re going with a millennial, made-from-scratch version. For this modern version, we’re using the natural sweetness of pumpkin as the base, with tapioca flour added to give it that gummy texture, and coconut milk for a milky fragrance.
Next, instead of dessicated coconut, we’re using freshly grated coconut, shaved fresh at the wet market in the morning, still fragrant and damp. If you’re in a suburban town in the US, I’m sorry, but this will probably be really tricky to source for. So the typical store-bough dessicated coconut, while nowhere near as fragrant and tender as the fresh type, would still do.
And for the coup de grace, instead of just using regular ol’ brown sugar, we’re using gula melaka, or coconut palm sugar. And if you’re feeling extra boujie, you can try finding coconut palm flower sugar, which is the premium, top-of-the-line finishing sugar that few know about. (Again, culinary secret courtesy of my mom.)
So, make some pumpkin nian gao, and as per Chinese custom, here’s me wishing you greater heights this year (年年高升), an overflow of abundance and wealth (年年有余), success in ten thousand things (万事如意), wealth and prosperity (恭喜发财), and most importantly, send me some red packets (红包拿來).
Pumpkin Nian Gao with Coconut & Gula Melaka
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
Pumpkin Nian Gao
450g pumpkin
120g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
300g tapioca flour
340ml water
130ml coconut milk
To top
100g freshly grated coconut
¼ teaspoon salt
80g gula melaka (in powder form, or you can grate a block of gula melaka too)
Directions
Peel and discard the skin of the pumpkin. Then, chop it up into 1-inch chunks, and steam over high heat for 15 minutes. Let the pumpkin cool down slightly, until warm to touch, then place the pumpkin, caster sugar, salt, tapioca flour, water, and coconut milk into a blender, and blend until it turns into a smooth puree.
Pour this into a deep, 8” x 8” baking tray—or a rectangular one of a similar volume—and steam on high heat for 45-50 minutes. Then, remove it from the steamer, and let it cool to room temperature. This keeps well in the refrigerator, up to a week.
When you’re ready to eat, place the freshly grated coconut and salt in a bowl, and toss until well mixed. Then, cut the pumpkin nian gao into thin, 1/4-inch thick slices—it’s extremely sticky when hot, so if you’re having it fresh on the day, it’s best to wait until it has cooled completely—and toss it through the coconut until the nian gaos are well-coated. Steam this over low heat for 5 minutes, just to bring it up to temperature.
To serve, place the coconut-covered pumpkin nian gao onto a plate or bowl, sprinkle a blizzard of grated coconut on top, and dust it with a generous amount of gula melaka. Indulge.