The August Moon Festival is just around the corner, with this year’s festival falling on Monday, September 12. We are blessed with so many places to buy moon cakes to commemorate Chang E who took up residence on the moon after gulping an immortal elixir. Every big-name hotel in Beijing sells moon cakes, as well as places such as Dao Xiang Cun (稻香村), a laozihao, or time-honored favorite, and even Starbucks and Haagen Daz, the latter famous for it’s ice cream moon cakes. I’m thrilled to let you know about a very unique Yunnan-style moon cake available at the Butterfly Spring Restaurant, run by the Dali City Government (9 Hongmiao Hutong, just off of Xidan Bei Dajie, Tel. 6651 9101). There are so many different kinds of moon cakes, with traditional versions varying from one village to another, offering endless shells and fillings. The shell of Yunnan-style moon cake is more like a pastry and the filling is amazingly tasty. The restaurant uses ham exclusively made using free-range pigs raised in Nuodeng Village, a remote area in Yunnan province. The village produces just 300 hams a year and 200 go to this small municipal government restaurant.
I believe this type of moon cake may appeal more to Western tastes because the filling is made of delicious and tasty ham, which means they’re not as alien to the Western tongue--more traditional Chinese moon cakes are filled with things such as a combination of salted duck egg yolk and lotus paste, or the overly sweet red bean/jujube paste filling.
Butterfly Spring sells it’s moon cakes for RMB12, each weighing about 100 grams. If you want to give moon cakes as a gift, the restaurant also offers bamboo baskets in two styles, a two-tiered square shaped basket (RMB32) and a round one (RMB36), which can serve as a gift hamper.
I learned how to make this type of moon cake while spending three months working in a hotel in Shangri-La in 2009. If you want to try your hand at making this tasty holiday food check out the recipe here.
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