Hi! A few friends and I who formerly lived in Kunming and now live on the west coast of the US have been craving some 耳块鸡, and maybe some 烧耳块. Alas, San Franisco's selection of Yunnan cuisine and ingredients is limited.

Knowing that ErKuai (耳块) is essentially some sort of pounded glutinous rice cake, we attempted to replicate the process with mediocre results.

Does anyone know have a recipe for making 耳块 from scratch or possibly know of a sufficient alternative?

Thanks!

i think you need Glutinous rice,Common meters the result is bad.Production of raw material is in fact of the rice, just need to select good quality, have fragrance, sticky rice.
First the rice to cook to six 、seven mature,And then in container blunt hit it,and Take out on knead the chopping board.

Erkai basically is made from normal rice the same ingredient that the rice noodles are made from, just slightly different techniques.

If you live in the SF bay area I would say that going to a ranch 99 super market and get yourself some packaged "rice cake" would do the trick, Or a korean food market where you can get the same thing.

Making this from scratch at home is too much work and time, and you probably won't find the appropriate equipment for it either.

Ditto 99 Ranch and Korean/Taiwanese rice cake. I went to a "Yunnan" restaurant once in SF Chinatown and that's what I got instead of proper ErKuai.

That said if you do manage to reproduce please let me know! I'm moving back to SF at the end of the year and I know I will be craving it!

I think erkuai is similar to Japanese mochi.

I had a Japanese-American girl friend and the family tradition was to make mochi for the New Year. My part was to get to Mom's house early pound for hours. I didn't see the rice cooked just joined brother and brother-in-laws in the heavy work.

Try this site; janmstore.com/mochitsuki.html

They had enough equipment so two batches could be going at once. The cooked rice was put in to scooped out logs, and the mallets were big and heavy. They also made it a competition. Great family fun!

news.kunming.cn/km-news/content/2011-03/01/content_2434134.htm (btw, you'll have better luck searching for it as 饵块)
here's a video: www.tudou.com/programs/view/_IMO6eTj53Q/

The article is in Chinese, but basically you need to soak the rice (use glutinous rice or a mixture of that and/or high quality short grain rice, like a high grade japanese rice) in water for a few hours (2+hrs) and then steam it directly (about 40 min). After the rice is steamed, run it briefly through some cold water, the rice shouldn't be soggy and its consistency should be even a little harder than normal rice. it needs to be ground down into little bits and then mashed and kneaded into a sticky consistency.

After the dough is formed into a shape it is aired out to dry....voila, erkuai!

However, the mashing is really quite a hassle and I would either suggest you get someone to send you/bring you some erkuai (it's on taobao) or just buy 年糕 available in chinese/asian supermarkets and slice it really thin to pretend it's like erkuai. Sure, it's stickier than erkuai, but definitely much more widely available.