Nian gao is not just for Chinese New Year. It makes great party finger food too. Every year the mother will buy several sweet nian gao and freeze them for later use. High in sugar content, the glutinous rice cake keeps well. Whenever there is a casual get together, she will fry up a big batch of nian gao with sweet potato or yam. Crispy with a sticky gooey filling, I will be pinching the hot slices right off the fryer and eating them at the risk of burning my mouth.
Happy Dong Zhi! Today, we had tang yuan in two styles. There is the usual tang yuan in brown sugar syrup and this: tang yuan with jiu niang, a kind of fermented glutinous rice popular in the Jiangsu, Zhejiang region of China.
I first tasted jiu niang tang yuan in Shanghai. The winey rice grains and chewy tang yuan in a hot, sugary broth served with a dollop of osmanthus syrup 桂花酱 was perfect to warm the body on a freezing winter day.
A few months ago my aunt had sent me some wine yeast so that I can make my own jiu niang. This first attempt was not very successful as the rice mixture had over ferment. It was edible but the texture was not quite right. I will need to try a few more methods before posting a workable recipe.
While the jiu niang did not turn out that well, the homemade osmanthus syrup was a hit. The floral, apricot scented sweetener is a delicious addition to jiu niang, tea and even yogurt.
This rustic dish came about when we had some left over Chinese roast pork belly. The Family liked it so much we now buy extra to cook the dish. Then again, it could be just a ploy to eat more. We do like to eat roast pork belly very very much.
I adore daikon braised with meat because they complement each other so well. Here, the daikon absorbs the sweetish savoury braising liquid and takes on the smoky flavour of the roast pork. No oil is added as the fat in the pork belly is quite sufficient to brown all ingredients.
It is believed that the Chinese have been cultivating yellow garlic chives 韭黄 for more than three thousand years. I have always wonder how it was invented, imagining a garlic chives farmer who decided to give himself more work by covering the young shoots with soil just for the fun of it. The end result of this experiment being yellow coloured plants due to the lack of sunlight.
While not as nutritious as the green garlic chives, the yellow variety is much more prized in the Chinese culinary world for its softer texture and delicate flavour, the most familiar usage being paired with ee-fu noodles.
To better appreciate the distinctive garlicky taste, I prefer to stir fry yellow garlic chives with squid or prawns. Cut the chives into 4cm lengths. Season the seafood with a little light soy, shaoxing wine and white pepper. Bring the wok to smoking hot, add oil and a bit of mince ginger, fry the squid or prawns until slightly opaque , throw in the chives and quickly toss everything together. Add salt to taste and plate the food.
I ferment my own red glutinous rice wine 红曲酒 using My Hokkien grandmother's method which yields both wine and wine lees 红糟. While the family use the lovely mellow wine for drinking and cooking, we do not quite know what to do with all that wine lees. The most common way to use the wine lees is to stew it with chicken but I am not fond of the dish finding the taste boring. The wine lees tint the chicken a blood red colour and some people, like the Brother and the Father are put off by it.
It is thus a delight to find the roast chicken marinated with wine lees recipe in Sylvia Tan's "mad about food" cook book. With the addition of shallots and garlic, the flavour is much more robust and complex. The wine lees and honey marinate gives the chicken a beautiful reddish brown hue. A winner in both taste and aesthetics!
A childhood favourite of mine, the pan fried water chestnut cake is a dim sum classic. The caramelized surface is crispy while the inside is slightly sticky and chewy. Bits of juicy water chestnut add a nice crunch and refreshing sweetness. It is quite amazing when one realises that the flour used for making the cake is water chestnut too. The same raw material and yet such difference in texture when cooked.
Here's a little secret I will like to share. No, not a dirty secret, more like many fatty layers of goodness, in a big slab of pork belly. I will not admit to liking this artery clogging cut of meat in public. It just seem too unhealthy a thing to let people know when some of my friends do not even eat pork.
A popular way to cook pork belly is to braise it in soy sauce or brine with spices. It is a method commonly used in East and South East Asia. Different parts of China have variations to the braising liquid. The Japanese add dashi stock and sake. Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore like to use galangal, five spice powder and usually toss in some dry chillies for extra spiciness.
The recipe here is a Thai version and one of my favourite. It features the most basic of Thai flavours: pepper coriander paste and fish sauce. The gravy is sweeter due to the generous use of palm sugar while the melt in the mouth pork belly is savory, sweet, peppery and garlicky. If no one is there to stop me, I would have eaten all the pork belly together with 2 big bowls of gravy covered rice and really hate myself for the rest of the month.
Uncle Tan who is a chef and an old family friend made these braised pork ribs for a party. The brother and the father raved about the ribs. For days all they talked about was how juicy and tender the ribs were. Anyway, Uncle Tan very generously passed us the recipe. He even bought the pork ribs and the necessary spices. We are just so lucky to have friends like him. A good deed begets another. Thus with Uncle Tan's blessings, here is the recipe to share with everyone. You will need to get your own ingredients though : )
It is good to be back on the IMBB wagon after missing the last two editions. IMBB 13 is hosted by one of my favourite food blogger, Maki of i was just really very hungry and the brilliant theme she has chosen is cupcakes.
Cupcakes, muffins or fairy cakes, I adore them all. I was having a hard time deciding what to make when I thought of the Chinese cupcakes I grew up eating. Known as huat kueh 发糕 (prosperity cake), it does not have icing and it is not even baked. However, the huat kueh is truly a cupcake as the cake is steamed in little Chinese tea cups.
A vital feature of the huat kueh is that the top of the cake has to crack open like a flower. A huat kueh that does not "bloom" loses its auspicious meaning even though it is still edible. That is probably the reason why in recent years store bought huat kueh tend to be over generous with baking powder to ensure the cakes bloom. After throwing away yet another huat kueh with a horrible chemical after taste, I decided to try making one myself. Just in time for IMBB too.
Today is Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice) which in Mandarin means "the extreme of winter". I wish everyone great happiness and optimism.
In Singapore where most Chinese descended from Southern Chinese, we celebrate Dong Zhi eating tang yuan which are glutinous rice balls in a sweet syrup. Chinese fesitval dishes usually have auspicious and meaningful names and the tang yuan is no different. Tang yuan sounds like "tuan yuan" which in Mandarin means reunion of the family. My Northern Chinese friends tell me that unlike the Southerners, they do not eat tang yuan but they eat jiao zi (Chinese savory dumplings). I think it will be really nice if I get to eat both tang yuan and jiao zi, kind of a North meets South Dong Zhi. Maybe next year.
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