Scorched Rice Candy

A recent visitor to The Candy Bowl (the blog, not the candybowl) said to me "You know what ones I like? Those burnt rice ones that are supposed to taste like the rice at the bottom of the rice cooker."

Chinese call it guoba. Koreans call it nurungji. If you have a decent modern rice cooker, and use it correctly, you probably will not get it at all. But make rice in an old/cheap rice cooker, with too little water, or too much heat, or too much time, and you will get a tasty brown crust on the bottom that has flavor to die for (and I'm sure some kind of naturally occurring chemical to die from. But I digress).

This candy is meant to taste like scorched rice, and has a good approximation of that flavor. Some liken it to burnt popcorn. Not charred popcorn, but popped kernels with golden brown around the edges. Some people like it a lot, including me. Others, including a certain high-level functionary, do not like it at all.

It's a spheroid boiled sweet, with creases and lumps on the outside. But it has a nice fracture, sometimes cracking in half. It leaves a bit more residue on the molars than a candy this good ought to. But that's all the more reason to suck it. And although some think the flavor at the center is different from that on the outside, Candybowl can assure you that he has proven them wrong beyond doubt.

Despite its long tenure in the candybowl (with fresh stock added at reasonable intervals), you people have not been eating enough of this candy. Candybowl says to eat this candy. Or else.