Shanghainese · dessert
Eight-Treasure Rice
八宝饭 · Bābǎo Fàn
A steamed dome of glutinous rice layered with red bean paste and decorated with eight types of preserved fruits and nuts.
Eight-treasure rice is a festive Shanghainese and Jiangnan dessert served at weddings and New Year banquets, made to look like a jewelled dome when inverted onto a plate. A bowl is lined with a colourful arrangement of eight (or more) preserved and dried ingredients — lotus seeds, longan, red dates, wolfberries, dried apricot, melon seeds, osmanthus and glazed winter melon or other combinations — then packed with layers of glutinous rice cooked with lard and sugar, with a cavity of sweet red bean paste (dòushā) in the centre. The packed bowl is steamed for 30–60 minutes, then carefully inverted onto a serving plate. The pattern of coloured fruits and nuts revealed on top is the decorative payoff. It is sweet, rich and intensely filling — a small slice per person is typical. Some modern versions substitute lard with butter.
Where to try
Shanghai: Shanghainese restaurants in the French Concession and Jing'an district list it as a seasonal dessert during winter and Chinese New Year. Hangzhou and Suzhou: traditional Jiangnan banquet restaurants.
Dietary notes
Glutinous rice, red bean, lard or butter, sugar, dried fruits, nuts. Contains dairy (if butter) or pork fat (if lard). Vegetarian if lard-free. Gluten-free.
Cities to try Eight-Treasure Rice
Other east dishes
- Beggar's Chicken叫花鸡
A whole chicken stuffed with aromatics, wrapped in lotus leaves and clay, then slow-baked until the meat steams in its own juices.
- Beggar's Chicken — Jiaohuaji叫花鸡 (江苏式)
A Jiangsu-province variation of clay-baked chicken with a lotus-leaf wrap and a mushroom and pork stuffing.
- Dragon Well Tea龙井茶
China's most celebrated green tea — pan-fired flat leaves from Hangzhou's West Lake district with a sweet, chestnut flavour.
- Drunken Chicken醉鸡
Chicken steamed and marinated in Shaoxing rice wine, served chilled. A Shanghai banquet starter.