recipes: fried nian gao

Fried nian gao is usually a staple during Chinese New Year. Typically the nian gao is sandwiched between two pieces of taro, but I had some leftover purple sweet potatoes so I thought I would tweak the recipe a little.

I used a mixture of 1:1 self-raising flour to rice flour in this mixture - very basic. I did not add any eggs in this mixture, since that typically makes the batter less crispy. All I added was some salt, to counter the sweetness from both the sweet potatoes and the nian gao. 

I thought the result was actually quite pretty - the purple contrasted with the caramel-color of the nian gao and the golden crust. I might try this recipe again, but this time double-dipping the fried nian gao in batter, so that a thicker, crisper crust is developed.

If you prefer the more traditional looking nian gao, check it out here.