Chow Times » Chinese New Year Food

Boiled Pork and Cabbage Dumplings

Suanne — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:00:01 +0000

The main Chinese New Year dish made in the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors is Boiled Pork and Cabbage Dumplings. Dumpling or jiaozi is a traditional dish eaten during Chinese New Year’s Eve and some other festivals. Family members gather together to make dumplings as wrapping dumplings is quite time consuming. Such activity also brings the family closer.

Dumplings can be boiled or pan fried. Boiling is a healthier choice of cooking.

Dumplings can be freeze on the baking sheet. Once they’re completely frozen, place them in a ziplock bag for future consumption.

Ingredients

12 ounces napa cabbage leaves, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup minced Chinese chives or green onions
2/3 pound ground pork
1/8 teaspoons ground pepper
1.5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup water

1 package refrigerated round dumpling wrapper (50 pieces)

Source: adapted from Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen

Prep time: 40 minutes; Cook time: 20 minutes; Yield 50 dumplings

Chris O’Brennan, Helena, Sdyney, Frances and Chris made these dumplings.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Boiled Pork and Cabbage Dumplings (344 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: Cabbage, Chinese New Year Food, Community Kitchen, Pork, Recipe, Snack

Taro Cake

Suanne — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:00:54 +0000

Back to the South Arm Community Kitchen, Peggy demonstrated to us how to make Taro Cake. Taro Cake is a common dim sum item. It can be eaten fresh from the steamer or lightly pan fry to give it a crispy outer layer. The Taro Cake can be eaten as a snack or even as a meal.

Peggy made two loaves of Taro Cake in the kitchen. She also brought one which she made earlier as the cake needs to be cooled down before you can slice it up into pieces for frying. The Taro Cake is so good that the group finish all the three loaves of Taro Cake.

Peggy’s Taro Cake is filled with pork and mushroom. However, you can substitute the filings with dried shrimp and Chinese sausage which are more commonly found in Dim Sum places.

Ingredients

2 cups grated Taro
1/2 cup ground pork
1/4 cup chopped shallot
1/4 cup thinly sliced dried mushroom
2 cups rice flour
1 cup cold water
1 cup boiling water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
soy sauce paste as dipping sauce

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Taro Cake (328 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post tags: Chinese New Year Food, Community Kitchen, Dim Sum, Recipe, Snack, Taro

Steamed Fatt Ko

Suanne — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:00:39 +0000

This post is for Carol. She asked for a recipe of steamed cake. I’m not sure if this is exactly what’s in her mind but nevertheless, as Chinese New Year is approaching, steaming some Fatt Ko seems to fit the festivities. Fatt Ko in Cantonese sounds like rise and high which is what Chinese wishes one another during Chinese New Year.

The Fatt Ko did not rise as much as it should be because I ran short of the double-acting baking powder. Anyway, I love the taste and texture of these Fatt Ko.

Ingredients

Starter:

200g Hong Kong flour (I used all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon instant yeast
150ml water

Dough:

250g Hong Kong flour
20g double-acting baking powder (I used only 12g as that all I have in my pantry)
160ml water
200g brown sugar or gula melaka (I used brown sugar)

If done properly, the Fatt Go should rise very high and the top will split. The Fatt Go is a little chewy and denser than it should be. It also has a yeasty flavour to it as Nanzaro said it’s like eating Man Tau (in his words, eating Char Siu Pau without the char siu).

Click on Read More for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Steamed Fatt Ko (233 words)

Baked Chinese New Year Cake

Suanne — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:00:12 +0000

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.

This is the coconut milk flavour I made at home. The crust seemed to be thicker as I used two smaller pans to bake it and I forgot to reduce the baking time.

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.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Baked Chinese New Year Cake (206 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 12 comments
Post tags: Chinese New Year Food, Community Kitchen, Kuih, Recipe

Hong Kong Style Tang Yuan

Suanne — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:00:17 +0000

Vanessa made some Hong Kong style Tang Yuan for dessert. It was a day just before Valentine’s Day. She is so thoughtful. Something sweet for your Valentines. The Hong Kong style Tang Yuan is different from the Taiwanese style in the soup. The Taiwanese Tang Yuan is flavoured with fermented glutinous rice and has egg flower in the soup while the Hong Kong style is flavoured with ginger and slab sugar.

I’m more used to the Hong Kong style Tang Yuan as it’s quite similar to the Malaysian style.

Ingredients

a package of glutinous rice flour

one or two tablespoons of rice flour

cold water

ginger

sugar slab

red bean paste

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Hong Kong Style Tang Yuan (273 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post tags: Community Kitchen, Dessert, Recipe

Yee Sang in Metro Vancouver

Ben — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:34:04 +0000

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.

© ben for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post tags:

Steamed Rice Cake

Suanne — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:00:04 +0000

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

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Steamed Rice Cake (116 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 38 comments
Post tags: Dessert, Kuih, Recipe, Rice Flour

Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake)

Suanne — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:00:04 +0000

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.

I do have a baked version which takes less than 1 hour to make.

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

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake) (263 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments
Post tags: Dessert, Glutinous Rice Flour, Kuih, Recipe

Garlic Chives Jiaozi

Suanne — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:00:51 +0000

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.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Garlic Chives Jiaozi (675 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments
Post tags: Chinese New Year Food, Community Kitchen, Dumpling, Pork, Recipe

Bak Kwa

Suanne — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:00:00 +0000

We had a picnic among friends just in the past weekend. It was perhaps the largest we had organized with over 50 adults and children attending. We could not have chosen a better weekend as the day was simply beautiful and a great time to be outdoors. Feels like summer already to us!

It was a pot luck picnic and as usual, everyone tries to bring something unique to the picnic to share. Suanne had a great idea to make something new for a change — Bak Kwa (or Rougan in Mandarin or Yoke Kon in Cantonese). Bak Kwa is basically dried meat … perhaps like the western Jerky but not quite. Bak Kwa is miles better than any Jerkies in the world, I swear.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Bak Kwa (369 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2007. | Permalink | 34 comments
Post tags: Pork, Recipe, Snack