taro cake

English

Etymology

Calque from Chinese 芋頭糕／芋头糕 (yùtougāo).

Noun

taro cake (countable and uncountable, plural taro cakes)

1. A type of savoury Chinese cake made from flour and taro, often topped with fried shallots and chopped spring onions, served either steamed or pan-fried.
   • 1999, Grace Young, The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing‎^[1], New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 130:

     Thick slices of taro cake, richly flavored with scallops, mushrooms, shrimp, Chinese bacon, and creamy taro, are pan-fried until golden brown and fragrant.

   • 2009, George A. Fowler, transl., translated by George A Fowler, Riddles of Belief... and Love—A Story‎^[2], Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, translation of Grandma's Old Town by Lin Zhe, →ISBN, page 281:

     "Or else," Great-Auntie paused for a moment, as if making a hard decision, "I'll buy you a piece of taro cake?"

   • 2016, Nicolas Y. Njintang, Joel Scher, Carl M. F. Mbofung, “Other Taro-based Products”, in Harish K. Sharma, Nicolas Y. Njintang, Rekha S. Singhal, Pragati Kaushal, editors, Tropical Roots and Tubers: Production, Processing and Technology, Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 395:

     While bakeries and snacks (deep‐fried taro chips and deep‐fried baskets – shredded taro molded into basket shapes and then deep‐fried in china – steamed taro cake, taro batter and bread, cakes and chunks in Hawaii), are gaining interest in research and industry, other products remain at the home scale.

Synonyms

• (Malaysia, Singapore) yam cake

Translations

savoury Chinese cake

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 芋頭糕／芋头糕 (wu⁶ tau^4-2 gou¹)

  Hakka: 芋粄 (vu-pán)

  Hokkien: 芋粿 (zh-min-nan) (ō͘-kóe, ō͘-ké)

  Mandarin: 芋頭糕／芋头糕 (yùtougāo)

• Finnish: jamssikakku
• Malay: kuih keladi
• Portuguese: please add this translation if you can