🍽️ Glutinous Rice in Pig Intestine

Pig intestine stuffed with glutinous rice and mushrooms, sliced and sauced.

Pig intestine stuffed with glutinous rice is a classic old-style Chaoshan snack; zhang in the local dialect means to stuff or fill. Cooks clean a pig's large intestine, fit it over a funnel, and fill it with glutinous rice mixed with soy sauce, diced mushroom, dried shrimp, pork belly cubes and lotus seeds, tying the ends before slow-boiling until fully set. Once cooled, it is sliced thick and either eaten as is or lightly pan-fried until the casing turns slightly crisp. The rice pudding inside is sticky and glutinous, the filling moist and savory, and the casing gently chewy; it is usually dipped in a sauce of mustard, peanut paste or sweet soy. In Shantou it appears at street stalls and old snack shops, sold by the slice, often with a bowl of grass jelly or tofu pudding for afternoon tea. It is a nostalgic traditional taste for locals and a lively market-food favorite at festivals.