🍽️ Fried Kueh

Fried glutinous kueh, crisp outside soft inside.

Fried Kueh is a common deep-fried rice cake from Shantou in the Chaoshan region, one of the fried items in the Teochew sweet and savory kueh family. Glutinous rice dough forms a skin wrapped around a savory filling—often chive, dried tofu and pork, or mashed taro—then shaped into crescents or flat cakes and fried to golden. The crust is crisp and shell-like while the inside stays chewy and glutinous; chive filling is pungent and appetizing, taro filling sweet and dense. Freshly fried, it is hot and aromatic, a typical street snack at Chaoshan alleys and market stalls. Locals often eat it in the afternoon with gongfu tea, whose mellow bitterness cuts the oily richness. Along with radish and taro cakes, it belongs to the broad Teochew kueh family, showing the local knack of shaping rice batter and frying it into food. In old Shantou, kueh fried and sold on the spot still carry a piping-hot street aroma.