This video recipe was submitted by Stacey Lau, a student at Cal State L.A. studying food science and the 2021 Stephen Huahn Memorial Award winner as the top college student.
Yuen is a sweet, traditional treat, served on special ocassions. And what’s more special than learning to make yuen with your grandmother.
In her video, Stacey Lau, with assistance from her dad, Bill, chats with her grandmother, Sui Ching (Wong) Lau, while they cook up a batch of yuen. Her grandmother was born in Gom Benn on May 21, 1924. She has four siblings: Raymond (Wong) Gin, Ngui Ching (Wong) Yan, Oi Chun (Wong) Lam and Wing Kit Wong. She is the second oldest.
Stacey’s grandparents, Tat Ming and Sui Ching Lau, came to the United States from Hong Kong in 1969, along with their children: John, Lai Kam, Patrick, Pak, Tony, Elina (the Scholarship Fund’s treasurer) and Stacey’s dad, Bill.
In the video, Stacey learns to make “yuen,” which Sui Ching learned from her mother (Stacey’s great-grandmother). Yuen was usually cooked for special occasions such as birthdays or a child’s one-month-old celebration. Sui Ching says their family would get up early to make it. They would take the yuen, along with roast pig and chicken, and go door to door to share with their family and friends.
The ingredients are 16 ounces of glutinous rice flour, 16 ounces of pure wheat starch, 16 ounces of dark brown sugar, and water.
Here are the steps:
- In a large baking pan, thoroughly mix the rice flour and brown sugar.
- In a saucepan, add boiling water to the wheat starch until it’s the consistency of Play-Doh.
- Add the starch mixture to the mixture of flour and brown sugar.
- Knead together, and add more hot water.
- Roll the dough into a “log” about an inch thick.
- Separate into nickel-size pieces
- Roll into balls.
- Place the yuen in a steamer with boiling water and steam for an hour.
- Eat once it cools a little.
- Yum.
