Why Chinese New Year puddings by Hong Kong brand Dashijie are so popular - mind you, making them is no piece of cake
- Founder Theresa Yiu, who first tasted success with her Lunar New Year offerings in 2010, reveals what she learned from ‘ruthless’ Cantonese cuisine legend Pearl Kong Chen
- Yiu says she is very particular about what goes into her products – nothing but the highest quality ingredients will do
Theresa Yiu, founder of Hong Kong food brand Dashijie, is frying radish cake in a canteen in the offices of food and beverage company Maxim’s Group on a recent winter morning. It doesn’t take long before the aroma starts to attract a crowd.
Yiu launched Dashijie in 2009, starting with three items that are popular around Lunar New Year – radish cake, sticky rice cake and water chestnut pudding – and selling them at City’super. Over Lunar New Year 2010, she sold 10,000 of them.
Yiu was raised in a large family – her father had two wives and she was one of 13 children. Their domestic helper, who was from Shunde, in Guangdong province, “was so skilled and creative in the kitchen, everything had wok hei”, Yiu says, referring to the “breath of the wok” that is so important in Chinese cuisine.
“We had a kitchenette with one of those simple, primitive, stainless-steel ovens. My sister and I [aged about eight] would wake up in the middle of the night to bake cakes,” she recalls. “We’d sit there and watch the cake rise through the glass. Even if it didn’t taste good, we thought it was yummy.”
Soon after, Yiu was sent to live with a strict uncle, who wanted her to focus on her studies when all she wanted was to spend time in the kitchen with her aunt.