Chiawisn Sun-Cake: Gift from Taichung and a Newly-Met Family

A family from Taiwan comes to visit us for an educational consultation about for their youngest son’s studying in a UK’s university. They brought us several Taiwanese food, some of which being very rare to be consumed since we left Taiwan for the UK. One of those presents is Sun Cake
(Pronounced Tai Yang Bing). It is a popular snack that we love to buy as a gift of travel in Taichung, a beautiful and contemporary city at Central Taiwan.

Sun Cake is flat and round with sweet and soft malt sugar fillings embrased in layers of flaked pastry skins. The ingredients include flour, butter, sugar, malt sugar and honey. The Sun Cake is purchased particularly from a small shop named ‘Chiawisn.’ This shop is not historic, only 25 years. Nevertheless, their Milky Sun Cake has been well-known in recent years and been awarded a Fine and Outstanding Sun Cake Prize. Chiawisn’s Sun Cake is full of the smell of butter. The pastry is thin and crispy while the filling is soft and moist. A very good combination when tasting. Although the ingredients contain many different sweet things, the cake is not too sweet at all. Chiawisn claims its products are made with low sugar, low fat, low carb but high quality, suitable for those care about their body weights. In addition, it is made for vegetarians. I love to have the cake with a cup of tea (green tea, in particular).

The family comes to England for the son’s school transfer. I can tell how much the family is worried about the son’s study environment, his social activity and his adaptability in this new University. The young man will live with us afterwards and the mum keeps telling me how grateful and how lucky they are to have us with his son. We are also delighted to meet them as they are so kind and easy-going. Eventually, I hope the son really understands the efforts his family has put on him and he will work hard in order to make himself better, on study and personality.

My one-and-only satay sauce

Satay sauce, made of oil, dry shrimps, peanuts, garlic, chilli and other spices, is commonly used by southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and south Mainland China. We use a lot in Taiwan. It is easily bought in every shop and simply added in dishes to become a typical Taiwanese taste. I love to stir-fry ingredients with satay sauce if the meal is prepared for my guests when I am in the UK. Although satay sauce is seen in many areas, I like the brand created by a Taiwanese company. It calls itself ‘barbecue sauce’ and you can recognise from its watermark of a ‘bull chef.’ As far as I remember, none of other brands has been seen in Taiwan. I think, the company must feel proud of themselves because they have built such a great successful business on this product, without monopolising but being chosen by Taiwanese consumers with all our hearts.

Now in Britain, I got a chance to buy different brands of satay sauce. Eventually, I still go for that ‘bull.’ The other brands I bought from China town are just odd on the taste, at least for me. The flavour and the taste is not as strong as that Taiwanese one. Although the bull costs more, I can not help return to his embrace. That is the flavour I do not give up even when I am not in Taiwan. For the concern of money, I sometimes ask my friends to bring from Taiwan. I always have my bull’s head at home and consistently put in inventory storage.

How to use satay sauce? It is really easy, as there are all variety of ways to do. You can add one tablespoon of sauce into stir-fry vegetables, meat, or seafood. You can also make a pot of soap, or whisk together the satay sauce, soy sauce, garlic and spring onion as a dipping, or mix in noodles or pasta. I summer, my favorite is to marinate meat in the mixture of the satay sauce, soy sauce, sugar, honey, chilli, garlic powder, and ground ginger for barbeque.
For a real oriental satay stir-fry, here is the recipe.

Pork Satay Sir-Fry
Cook time : 15 mins
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 tbsps vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp satay sauce
4tbsp soy sauce
400g pork, cut into 1cm (½in) strips
1 medium skinned onion, sliced
1 green/red pepper, seeded, quartered and sliced 1 medium carrot, sliced
Spring onion

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a wok or large pan and add the garlic, stir-fry until the smell of garlic comes out. 2. Add pork and stir-fry for 4 minutes until golden. Then, add all the vegetables and stir-fry for another 4 minutes until tender yet crunchy.
3. Add soy sauce and satay sauce, stir well. Put some strips of spring onion on the top before serve.

Tips:
1. Serve with rice. You will find the sweetness of rice is aroused by the taste of satay.
2. You can change the pork to any kinds of meat (beef, chicken…) or seafood. In my picture, I use the sausage we had last night, and it is also good.
3. I always add vegetables that I like. Courgette tastes good with satay sauce, too, but I had no Courgette in my fridge at that moment.