What it is
Hakka vegetable bun (菜包) is a parcel of rice dough, not a wheat bun. The skin is glutinous rice, soft and slightly chewy. Inside is a savoury mix of shredded white radish, minced pork, dried shrimp and mushroom, so despite the name it is not vegetarian. Ban (粄) is the Hakka word for rice dough, like Hokkien kué (粿).
Where it came from
Hakka speakers also call it 豬籠粄, "pig-cage ban", after the bamboo cages once used to take pigs to market. Explanations of the likeness differ: some point to the plump, round body, others to the ridge pinched along the top.
How the bun began is unclear. A common story holds that Hakka ancestors, after moving south from northern China and changing from a wheat diet to rice, shaped rice dough into a dumpling-like parcel to offer at ancestral rites.
Its season follows the farm year. The second rice crop is in by the winter solstice, when families turn to filling glutinous rice foods, and white radish is plentiful from early winter until the Lantern Festival. The bun is still a standard offering to ancestors and gods at Chinese New Year and other major festivals, and is also made for Qingming, the spring grave-sweeping festival.
How it is made
The skin is glutinous rice dough, sometimes mixed with ordinary rice. With oiled hands, the cook presses a ball into a disc, thin at the rim and thicker in the middle. White radish is shredded and pressed to drive out water, then stir-fried with minced pork, dried shrimp, mushrooms and fried shallots, seasoned with salt and white pepper. The bun is closed, turned seam down and given a ridge along the top. Each one sits on a leaf, often pomelo or shell ginger, for steaming.
How to eat it
Families make it for Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival and ancestor offerings, while shops in Hakka towns sell it as an everyday snack. Besides the plain savoury kind, look for green mugwort dough, sweet potato dough, or sweet fillings such as red bean or taro. Ask for 客家菜包, since plain 菜包 can also mean a wheat-flour vegetable bun.
Around Taiwan
- North
- In Beipu, an old Hakka town in Hsinchu County, Tsou Chi Cai Bao (鄒記菜包) holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Its savoury bun is filled with radish, dried shrimp, pork and home-rendered lard, and the sweet version uses mugwort dough.
- Central
- Miaoli City's ban festival (粄仔節), a celebration of Hakka rice-dough foods, began in 2008 as a Jiasheng community event before the city government expanded it.
- Hakka
- The leaf under the bun varies. Hakka chef Jackie Chang says families in the Miaoli hills use shell ginger or wild ginger leaves, while coastal families, his mother-in-law among them, prefer hibiscus. Pomelo leaves are another common choice.
