Beyond sipping, rice wine is versatile in the kitchen
Print Edition
WINTER is the perfect season for homemade rice wine, which can be drunk straight or used to flavor various dishes.
One popular way to use the fermented beverage is jiuniang, a heady rice wine soup, made of fermented glutinous rice with a slight splash of alcohol. It’s a popular, easy-to-cook dish in Shanghai’s suburban areas.
This traditional wintertime snack is often cooked with small dumplings and is often served as a dessert during festivals.
Today, jiujiang remains very much a rural specialty.
To make the wine, first soak new rice or glutinous rice in water in bamboo containers. Soaking makes the rice moister and more glutinous when cooked. Then place the rice — separated by layers of muslin — in a giant bucket and steam it on top of a clay oven for around 45 minutes.
The rice is then rinsed in water, cooling it to around 36 degrees Celsius.
An experienced cook doesn’t need a thermometer; a touch of the hands signals the right temperature.
After straining the water, the rice is placed in a vat and sprayed with yeast. Dig a deep hole in the center of the rice as a reservoir for the rice juice released in the fermentation process. Seal the vat with a lid.
Some farmers wrap the vat in straw quilts to keep the temperature at around 36 degrees Celsius, though it can rise to around 40 degrees during fermentation.
Then let the vat rest and the yeast do its work on the starch.
In winter, a vat takes about 36 hours to ferment to the right level. If the weather is especially cold, it could take longer. Brewing is an art. Too much fermentation can make the rice go sour.
When the time is up and you open the lid, a strong sweet aroma with a slight alcoholic smell rushes out of the vat.
The delicious result can be used to cook jiuniang with dumplings, sweet omelettes and steamed pork.
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