Chee Jor or Ji Zhor depends on how one is going to romanize it..It's a chewy sweet potato finger.
The non-muslim community in Kuala Kangsar will know of this snack.This is sold at a small hawker stall near the town's supermarket, only available evening onwards, made by a Hokkien lady who resides few doors away from my old residence, a family friend.. It's like those sweet potato balls, but made into fingers.
The only town that I know that has these is Taiping. I do not know if these are found in other places as well, please let me know if there are.
Please do not ask me what does JiJor means in Hokkien. My friend tried helping me ask kuih sellers in Taiping what does JiJor means and no one could tell. It's just a name. What is Ji what is Jor? Do you have the answer?
And this recipe's portion is small. I fried these in a small saucepan using 1.5 cup of oil over medium low heat.
JiJor
Tasted and recipe recreated by WendyinKK
200gm steamed orange sweet potato**
60gm sugar, more if you like it sweeter
40gm glutinous rice flour or more, as needed
40gm tapioca starch
1. Mash sweet potato with sugar.
2. Add in glutinous rice flour and tapioca starch, and knead to form a rollable dough. Add more glutinous rice flour if the dough is sticky.
3. Divide the dough into small balls (I made 20g each) and roll them into little rods, like fingers.
4. Heat some oil (I only used around 1.5 cups and fried in a saucepan) on medium low heat.
5. Put in a few of the rolled dough into the oil and gently fry it.* It will take a few minutes to fry each batch.
6. Drain the fried Chee Jor on kitchen paper towels and let them turn warm before serving.
*It sinks when your put it in, then it will float as it fries. After it floats, let it continue to fry until you see it turning slightly golden on the surface. It will not turn golden. Crust will form when it cools down.
**If you choose to use the purple variety of sweet potato, you might need to add water to the dough.
Hi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteJi jor (or chi chor)， "ji" means fried炸, "jor" means枣 as in the case of "ang chor" or red dates红枣 in Hokkien. But i am not sure why this one is called "chor" when obviously there are no dates being used. I guess may be the old recipe required the use of red dates. I am not very sure just my wild guess.
JC
Gosh! I would love this snack. Sweet potatoes are my favourite.
ReplyDeleteI hardly seen this over here. Did not even know what is ji jor till I read your post.
JC,
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's the shape of dates.
Much earlier I asked my hubby, he said, red dates is ang jau, now he says it's ang jor, hahahaha!
I am hokkien. My grandma used to make these. But we make into long and 2 edges pointing which looks like dates (the shape looks something like kuih che mek molek). That's how the name derived.
ReplyDeleteIt is called Ji Jor or Chi Chor (by the Hokkien people) in Malaysia and炸枣 in China and originated from Quan Zhou泉州 Hokkien福建
ReplyDeleteJc