Wenling Qiangao (Stuffed Rice Cake Pocket)
A warm slab of freshly pounded rice cake pressed flat, filled with your choice of stir-fried vegetables, pork and egg, folded shut and eaten by hand as a Wenling breakfast.
How to eat it
The vendor tears a lump from a warm block of rice cake, flattens it on the board, spoons in the fillings, adds a ladle of broth if asked and pinches it shut into a fat pocket wrapped in paper. Hold it upright with both hands and bite from the top so the broth does not escape from the seam. The rice cake is dense and chewy, and one is a full meal; do not order two. Eat it within a few minutes, since the rice cake stiffens as it cools.
The story behind the dish
Wenling, on the coast south of Taizhou city, has a long habit of pounding rice cake at home, and this is the everyday form that habit takes. The name means "inlaid cake": fillings are set into the rice cake rather than eaten beside it. Any stall will have a dozen trays of cooked fillings on the counter, typically pickled mustard greens, shredded potato, bean sprouts, tofu skin, braised pork, fried egg and cabbage, and every customer builds a different one. It is a working breakfast, sold from before dawn until the trays empty by mid-morning. Most Wenling residents have a fixed stall and a fixed combination, and eating one is still the standard way to start the day.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.
If you have an allergy or something you can't eat, check with the staff before you order.