Restaurants put new twist on festival snack
A customer buys qingtuan at Sunya Cantonese Restaurant, which has come up with a new flavor, butter cashew.
A customer buys qingtuan at Xing Hua Lou, where a cheese beef version is served.
With Qingming Festival only one month away, time-honored brands in Shanghai have put a novel twist on the traditional qingtuan (green glutinous rice balls) and moved their sales online due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Qingtuan is a seasonal snack associated with the Qingming Festival, which falls on April 4 this year. The festival is an occasion for people to sweep family tombs and pay tribute to ancestors.
This year, time-honored restaurants have introduced innovative flavors such as butter cashew, cheese beef and durian fillings.
Chefs make qingtuan at Sunya Cantonese Restaurant.
Sunya Cantonese Restaurant on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall has come up with a new qingtuan flavor: butter cashew.
"We smash nuts, butter and sesame and mix them as filling," said executive chef Huang Renkang.
"Sesame has a taste of graininess and enhances the fragrance of cashews. It's an East-meets-West combination and we have done a lot of trials since late last year on the new recipe," said Huang.
"The flavor is very popular among young people," he said.
The restaurant dating back to 1926 also serves other qingtuan tastes like salted egg yolk and dried meat floss, sweetened bean paste and yanduxian, a typical Shanghai soup with pork and bamboo shoots.
It's also trying online sales via food delivery platforms for the first time this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
"Our offline business is getting better day by day, but we've also launched online sales to prevent gathering, and qingtuan delivered to our customers are fresh," said Huang.
"I am curious about the butter cashew taste because I am a nut lover," said Chen Jingjing, a white-collar worker in her 30s. "Traditional bean paste is too sweet and I will take these qingtuan back to my parents for them to try."
She bought a box of four qingtuan with butter cashew filling.
Another resident, Wang Zheng, a retiree, said she is more comfortable with traditional flavors.
"I like red bean paste filling, and this is a perfect combination with the glutinous rice ball," said Wang. "Traditional is classic."
Huang said the sales peak is expected from mid to late March.
A Xing Hua Lou chef serves qingtuan.
At Xing Hua Lou in Huangpu District, a cheese beef qingtuan is on offer. The ingredients are black pepper from south India, fresh cheese and beef.
"We tried dozens of black peppers, and the final selection is both spicy and fragrant," said Xu Yingjun, technical director of the catering department at Xing Hua Lou.
"The flavor is enriched and silky, featuring light spicy pepper, chewy beef and rich milky cheese," said Xu.
The development of new qingtuan recipes started as early as the end of last year's Qingming Festival, Xu said.
"We developed eight new flavors and finally picked this one based on trial tastings," said Zhi Jing, deputy general manager of Xing Hua Lou.
Chicken, pork and beef were all on the table at first, but beef finally won out.
The qingtuan gains its green color from the juice of wormwood leaves.
Xing Hua Lou qingtuan
"We introduce Western cuisine into the traditional Chinese snack, which overturns the traditional impressions and attracts young consumers," said Zhi.
Another qingtuan with shredded chicken and bacon filling, a popular hit last year, is also served by the time-honored brand that dates back to 1851, together with qingtuan filled with purple sweet potato, and salted egg yolk and dried meat floss.
The shredded chicken and bacon filling tastes like cream of mushroom soup, while salted egg yolk and dried meat floss qingtuan is the most popular.
It was a hit in 2016 when it first hit the market, as people had to queue up for hours to buy it.
Xing Hua Lou is taking strict prevention measures amid the coronavirus outbreak.
"Every staff worker must have their temperature measured and have their hands disinfected before work, and a thorough disinfection is conducted throughout the restaurant every hour," said Xu.
Xing Hua Lou qingtuan
Xing Hua Lou started offline sales on Monday, about one week later than last year due to the outbreak. By 10am on Thursday, queues had already formed outside the restaurant.
“We pasted red spots on the ground to remind customers to keep their distance when queuing and we have staff to maintain order," said Zhi.
Xing Hua Lou is selling qingtuan on several online platforms, such as JD.com and Tmall, food delivery platforms Ele.me and Meituan, Freshippo and online grocery shopping platform Dingdong.
A chef makes qingtuan at Sunya Cantonese Restaurant.
A chef adds oil to qingtuan at Sunya Cantonese Restaurant.
