Betty showed us how to make Chinese New Year Cake, the baked version. The baked version takes much lesser time than the steamed version. Betty made two different flavours of the baked Chinese New Year Cake.

She made one with red bean soup and another just plain. You can make it in coconut milk flavour too.

Ingredients

• 1 package of glutinous rice flour (400g)
• 3 eggs (medium)
• 1 1/2 cups water or milk or coconut milk or red bean soup
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar (use 1 cup if red bean soup has been sweetened)

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Baked Chinese New Year Cake"

We had a gathering among friends from Singapore and Malaysia today to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We had been meeting every year and these group of friends had been very much like family to us.

This year we gathered in Mark’s and Jess’ place where each family brought something for potluck. The planning for this gathering started a month before the Chinese New Year. This year we had TWO, not one, potlucks. One for during lunch time and the followed by a dinner steamboat (or better known as hot pot in Canada) out in the cold.

I just wanted to share the Yee Sang that we had. Yee Sang (sometimes spelt as Yusheng or Yuu Sahng) is a Chinese style fish salad. I think this is served and eaten during Chinese New Year only among Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore. So, if you ask other Chinese about Yee Sang, they will give you a puzzled look! Yee Sang is served from the 7th to 15th day of Chinese New Year.

We had great fun today tossing the Yee Sang. It is an act called Low Sang (or Low Hei) which signifies abundance, prosperity and vigor for the new year. Here is how we did it today:

Now, I have never seen anywhere in Metro Vancouver where one could buy Yee Sang. Do you know of anywhere one sells it? Suanne had blogged about the recipe here before. Check it out if you want to see how this is made. The recipe is from our master Yee Sang chef, Jess Chim. Jess makes this and sells it by the “mai” (a “mai” is a serving for four people) and could deliver it to (almost) anywhere in the Lower Mainland. So, if you want to place an order for Yee Sang, just send her an email at jesschim@shaw.ca.

For the Chinese New Year celebration, I also made a Steamed Rice Cake. This is slightly different from the Pak Thong Koh. Pak Tong Koh is leavened by yeast while this Steamed Rice Cake is leavened by double acting baking powder. It does not have the hint of sourness as the Pak Thong Koh.

This Steamed Rice Cake is lightly sweet. It is eaten during Chinese New Year because of the way the cake rises and blossoms. Rise in Cantonese is “fatt” and “fatt” in Cantonese also means prosperity or wealth.

Ingredients

Step 1:

• 200g rice flour
• 200ml coconut milk
• 160ml boiling water
• 1 teaspoon double acting baking powder

Step 2:

• 120g sugar
• 1 teaspoon double acting baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

continue reading "Steamed Rice Cake"

Nian Gao is a traditional Chinese New Year dessert. It is a sticky rice cake which requires long hours (7 hours!) of steaming. It is eaten in Chinese New Year because its pronunciation is a homophone for “a more prosperous year, higher position, grow taller, etc, year after year”. For example, businesses to grow more prosper, working class people to go higher in their career path and for kids to grow taller.

Nian Gao can be kept for a long time. It just need to be re-steamed to regain its soft texture.

Ingredients

For the golden syrup:

• 300g sugar
• 200ml water
• 2 slices lemon

For the Nian Gao:

• 300g glutinous rice flour
• 300g sugar
• 300ml water
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup
• banana leaves or parchment papers for lining tins

continue reading "Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake)"

At the South Arm Community Kitchen, Vanessa brought along a new friend, Ming. Ming is from Beijing and she was a chef back there. We are fortunate to learn from Ming how to make jiaozi from scratch. Yes, even the dough is made from scratch.

The timing is just right as Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Jiaozi is a traditional food during Chinese New Year. Ming enlightened us on why jiaozi is eaten during Chinese New Year. For one, the shape of jiaozi resembles the gold ingots which is a form of money used during the past. Therefore, jiaozi is believed to bring wealth in the new year. Also, the Cantonese believes that the way the filings is wrapped in a wrapper keeps the wealth within the family.

Jiaozi is also believed to get its name from the shape which resembled horn shape.

There are various filings for jiaozi. Garlic chives or also known as Chinese chives is the most common one. The mild garlicky flavour of the chives complements the flavour of the pork very well. I had blogged about other types of jiaozi here and here.

Ingredients

• ground pork (can also use ground beef or lamb), about 2 lbs
• garlic chives, 1 bundle, finely chopped
• minced ginger
• salt
• sesame oil
• cooking oil
• chicken bouillon powder (optional)
• flour
• water

The garlic chives has flat leaves unlike the regular chives which has hollow rounded leaves.

continue reading "Garlic Chives Jiaozi"

Pineapple is native to Brazil and central America, but is now a favorite crop in tropical and subtropical climates. Pineapple is a good source of manganese, as well as containing significant amounts of Vitamin C and B1.

Pineapple makes an excellent marinade and tenderizer because it contains bromeline, an enzyme that digests protein. The enzyme also keeps gelatin from setting, so pineapple is not good for fruit jellies.

I love pineapple but I seldom buy a whole pineapple. This is because I’m intimidated by the task of cutting up a pineapple. There are lots of so called eyes on the pineapple which need to be removed.

I guessed the exporter of pineapples are aware of this and nowadays, you’ll find a little brochure attached with the pineapple illustrating how to cut up a pineapple.

First, you remove the top and bottom of the pineapple.

Then, you stand the pineapple up on the flat bottom and cut the pineapple into quarters.

Remove the core which is too fibrous to eat.

Next, I divide the quarters into eights. A slimmer piece makes the removal of the skin easier. The last thing is to remove any remaining eyes on the pineapple.

To make the pineapple filling, I used:

• 2 pineapples
• 180g rock sugar (I added more because the filling is very tangy)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Finely chop the pineapple in a food processor.

Transfer the grated pineapples to a pot and add the rock sugar and cinnamon powder.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until most of the liquid has evaporated.

This is the most daunting part. It took me 3.5 to 4 hours to get the liquid evaporated. I was thinking if I drain the pineapple first to get rid of some of the juice, it will take me less time to cook it. But, on the other hand, I would want the pineapple filling to have a very concentrated flavour of pineapple by cooking off the liquid slowly. Well, is there a better way to do this? I wonder if this can be done in a slow cooker without the constant stirring.

After almost 4 hours of cooking, I finally ended with a bowl of pineapple fillings for the Tangerine Cookies and Pineappple Tarts. No wonder those homemade Pineapple Tarts are so expensive. I used to buy them in Malaysia for Chinese New Year celebration. It is so labour intensive to produce.

During Chinese New Year, tangerine is the official fruit. Every Chinese family will surely have tangerines. Tangerine in Cantonese is ‘kum’ which has the same pronunciation as gold in Cantonese. So, tangerine is an auspicious fruit during this festive season.

It is the Chinese customs to visit families and friends during the 15 days of Chinese New Year celebration. During such visits, the visitor will bring gifts which always include tangerines.

I saw this Tangerine Cookies in a recipe book which Ben brought back from Malaysia and its just perfect for Chinese New Year celebration. Unfortunately, the Tangerine Cookies did not turn out as pretty as those in the recipe book. I think its the temperature of the oven which caused the cookies to be slightly burn. Anyway, if you would like to try this recipe, I’ll recommend you lower the oven temperature.

Since the first batch of the Tangerine Cookies did not turn out as I expected, I used the rest of the pastry to make Pineapple Tarts. Actually its more to a Thump Print Pineapple Cookies because I do not have a pineapple tart cutter.

The Pineapple Tart turned out pretty good. Of course, I bake them in lower temperature that the recipe book recommended. I have always love the tartness of the pineapple in a slightly sweet pastry cookie.

Ingredients

• Pineapple filling (I will blog about this tomorrow)
• 300g plain flour
• 50g custard powder
• 1 tablespoon milk powder
• 180g butter
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 beaten egg yolk
• Cloves for decoration

continue reading "Tangerine Cookies"

Kueh Bangkit is one of the traditional cookies served during Chinese New Year. It is a very light and fragrant cookie that melts in your mouth.

Traditionally, its made with a mold in the shape of little chick. I do not have such mold, so I tried to use my cookie press to make it.

I was successful with the cookie press for the first batch of the Kueh Bangkit and ran into difficulty with the second batch. The dough just wont come out from the press. So, for the rest of the dough, I just shaped the dough into long strips and cut them into 2 cms strips for baking.

Ingredients

• 300g tapioca flour
• 3-4 pieces pandan leaves (screwpine leaves)
• 20g margarine, softened
• 1 egg yolk
• 140g icing sugar
• 120ml coconut milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder (I substituted with 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract)

continue reading "Kueh Bangkit"

Check out our other Yee Sang post and video here.

Eating Yee Sang in Malaysia and Singapore is a tradition every Chinese New Year. Yee Sang is basically a Chinese raw fish salad. Unlike Japanese, Chinese do not eat raw fish, preferring it cooked. However, this is the only Chinese dish which we know contains raw fish. However, I must add that this is a dish invented in Singapore and is popular only in Malaysia and Singapore. So, if you ask Chinese outside of Malaysia and Singapore, they will very likely not know what Yee Sang is.

Half the fun in eating Yee Sang is by a communal tossing of the salad with chopsticks. The action of tossing is known as Lo Hei which symbolizes increasing prosperity, abundance and vigor. That is why this dish is very popular among businessmen.

We gathered around the table with the kids to toss the Yee Sang. We had to make sure we briefed the kids how to toss or else, heaven forbid, they will throw the salad all over the place! They were excited over this alright. However, most of the kids does not like Yee Sang but the adults do.

The Yee Sang is characterized by it’s colorfulness. It is served in a large flat platter with vegetables arranged around a small serving of raw fish in the middle. It had been many, many years since Suanne and I have last eaten Yee Sang. So, we were glad when Jess told us she knows how to make it. It looked really good and it smells great too … just like the Yee Sangs I used to know.

It is a lot of work preparing this dish. Jess told us that she worked until midnight doing all the preparation and shredding of vegetables. Suanne did not get the exact amount of ingredients from Jess but Jess did provide a lot of details of how she made this. She is an expert cook and have done a lot of exotic dishes which Suanne had not even dare to try … dishes like Hokkien Mee. Jess is so expert she does not use measurements!

Here are some of the ingredients. For the raw fish, she uses salmon. For the vegetables, which provides the crunch to the salad, she uses the following:

• Green Papaya
• Daikon
• Carrots
• Turnip
• Jicama
• Yam
• Ginger
• Other vegetables suitable for this dish are cucumber and red cabbage. Any fruits or vegetables that can be thinly julienne and dont turn brown will be great for this dish.

The sauce (or salad dressing, is you may), consists of

• Plum Sauce
• Sesame Paste (1/3 volume of the Plum Sauce), and
• Honey (also 1/3 volume of the Plum Sauce)

The hardest work is to shred the vegetables into long thin strips. Mark found a way to use a serrated vegetable peeler to help the process. It sure cuts down the time taken but the strips are not fine. Good enough. Anyone knows another way to do this better?

Another important ingredient is the pomelo which is a fruit native to South East Asia. It is like a green orange the size of a basketball.

The ones below are shredded yam and coloured and fried in hot oil. This gives the dish a vibrant green and red. Other ingredients not shown here are some crispy fried dough or you can use fried wonton skin.

For the sauce, Jess cooked all the three sauces in low heat until one can smell the fragrance of the sesame paste.

The next important thing is presenting this on the platter. First off, arrange all the vegetables on a ring around the platter. Arrange it so that the colour balances. Next, the raw fish is places in the middle and topped with some sliced ginger. Squeeze some lime juice over the raw fish. Sprinkle the crispy dough (or fried wonton skins) around the dish, not covering the raw fish. Next, season the platter with five spice powder and pepper. Finally, drizzle the sauce with equal amount of vegetable oil around the entire dish. This gives a gloss to the dish.

Thanks Jess (and Mark for taking pictures!) for sharing this recipe. We all enjoyed this Yee Sang very much. I know where to go for a good Yee Sang the next Chinese New Year!

Betty made Suey Choy Pork Dumpling in the Caring Place Community Kitchen a couple weeks ago.

This is the pan fried version which I find is more tasty than the boiled version. The boiled version is best served in hot broth to keep it warm. You can check out the technique of making the boiled version at this link.

Ingredients

• 1 package of fresh dumpling skin (about 50 pieces)
• 1 lb lean ground pork
• 1 small suey choy (1 lb or more), finely chopped
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of minced ginger
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

continue reading "Suey Choy Pork Dumpling"