(Photo credit: Xinpu Township Office)

The Taiwanese term Mi Tai Mu (米苔目) is a transliteration of the Hakka name for rice sieve noodles Mi Si Mu (米篩目). To make this type of noodles, the Hakkas mix rice and sweet potato powder with water and stir it into a dough. Then they put the dough on the bamboo rice sieve and forcefully rub it through the holes on the surface of the rice sieve. The mixture that is filtered out of the sieve —  a similar process as sieving rice — is called rice sieve noodles.

(Photo credit: Xinpu Township Office)

Rice sieve noodles can be as a meal (salty) or as a dessert (sweet). As a dessert, rock sugar water and other ingredients, such as tapioca balls, glutinous cakes, grass jelly, big red beans, etc. are added to rice sieve noodles.  It’s then cooled and served cold, a refreshing snack in hot weather. As a meal, it is cooked with chives, bean sprouts, and ground meat. In the early agricultural society, this dish was eaten by farmers working in the fields as a supplemental food or snack at 10 am or 3 pm. In the past, families were large, so "Mi Si Mu” was a food that was very suitable for the whole family to make and enjoy together. Hakka villagers also treated neighbors with the snack as a way to thank each other for helping out during the harvesting time.

Hakka Leicha Pudding, Mi Si Mu Sweet Potato Pie 

Creative concept:

Mi Si Mu is a snack enjoyed during the time of harvest in Hakka farming communities. In a modern twist to this dish, the concept of snacks is used to blend Mi Si Mu with the most familiar sweet potatoes to make a dessert. This dish uses pudding to cover Mi Si Mu and then mixes in sweet potato, using the biscuit commonly seen in western desserts for the bottom part. On top of this we add small wine-scented sweet lemon slices. We also add Beipu leicha powder in the interlayer to increase the Hakka flavor of this dish.

We serve this dish with the ginger and brown sugar sauce which uses our homegrown tender ginger. The taste is like sweet flavor coming from salty flavor and sweet flavor turning into a sweet and sour taste. It is like the taste farmers enjoy when they have worked till they are sweating, taking a break to eat snacks.

We hope to combine modern Western dessert making styles with the snack farmers used to eat during the harvest season, while retaining the taste of the days of yore.

Ingredients:

digestive biscuits 300 g

salt-free cream 150g

sweet potato 30 g

milk 30g

egg 300g

Mi Si Mu 100g

low-gluten flour 200g

water 100g

tender ginger 100g

sweet lemon slice 10g

sugar 10g

vanilla pod sauce 20g

salad oil 50g

red yeast rice powder 50g

brown sugar 10g

water malt 30g

rum 30g

Cooking Method:

1. Wash and peel the sweet potatoes and steam in a steamer for 30 minutes.

2. Add the egg and sugar to the milk, mix well; add the Mi Si Mu and vanilla pod  sauce, and steam in a steamer for 30 minutes.

3. Heat the unsalted cream until it melts.

4. Crush the digestive biscuit, mix it well with the other ingredients, press it into the mold, and put it into the freezer.

5. Put the steamed Mi Si Mu pudding into a mold and put it in the freezer.

6. Mix the low-gluten flour with water, salad oil, and red yeast rice powder. Heat the pan, pour in a spoonful of batter and pan fry it until it is crispy.

7. Add the ginger powder to the brown sugar, water, and water malt and cook at 110 degrees.

8. Place the biscuit at the bottom of the serving plate, and put the sweet lemon slices, the sweet potato, the leicha powder, and the Mi Si Mu pudding on top in that order.

9. Decorate with red yeast rice powder and leicha powder.

10. Top this with brown sugar ginger sauce just before eating.