Posted by Bel.C
It had been a fun and busy long weekend filled with luncheons, dinners and friend gatherings for the celebration of Tiger Year. On the other hand, I had a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with my lovely boyfriend. Everything was just great. Here once again, I wish everyone a good start in the Chinese New Year and wish all the couples a happily ever after (有情人總成眷屬).
On the first day of Chinese New Year, I’ve prepared the well known vegetarian dish so called the Buddha’s Delight or lo han jai (羅漢齋). It is traditionally consumed by the Buddhist monks who are vegetarians. However this dish has grown popularity over the years and now can be found in most Chinese restaurants for serving. For Buddhists who are not solely vegetarians will also practice vegetarians on the first and fifteenth day of the month based on the lunar calendar. Therefore this vegetarian dish has become more and more popular and eventually become a traditional dish for the Chinese New Year.
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Posted by Eric.N
This coming Sunday is the first day of Chinese New Year, here I have prepared the famous dish Black Moss Seaweed with Braised Dried Oyster (髮菜蠔豉). This Cantonese dish is famous to be served during the Chinese New Year because the combination of the ingredients of black moss (髮菜) and dried oysters (蠔豉) that has the similar pronunciation with fat choy hao shi (發財好市) in Chinese that signifies good wealth and a good market. Being in a low economy since last year, I sincerely wish everyone has a rich and prosperous Tiger Year.
Black moss seaweed or fat choy can be found in Asian or Chinese supermarkets in the dried food section. It doesn’t look delicious from the appearance as it is black in color and it looks like the human black hair. For that reason, it is named as “hair vegetable (髮菜)”. But when it is cooked, it is actually tasted just like very fine vermicelli in texture except it is in black color. It is used widely in many Chinese New year dishes for good wealth and richness.
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Posted by Patrick.C
Lotus root soup is one of the famous slow-cooked soups to be served in the Chinese New Year eve’s reunion dinner for most Cantonese families. It is named jia ou tian cheng (佳藕天成) in Chinese, which literally means a pair of couple is born to be married with each other. The Chinese singles believe will have a good marriage in the coming year by consuming this soup.
Since I just made the lotus root soup recently, I didn’t want to have the same thing again for the weekend. So I looked out for something new to try out and finally what came across my mind was one of my favorite soups that I usually have when I dine at a local authentic Taiwanese restaurant. It is the American ginseng chicken soup (花旗參雞湯), an herb soup with slightly bitter flavor but it is definitely delicious and health benefits.
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Posted by Bel.C
My mum loves baking big time! Everyone loves her baking, cookies, and cakes so much. She used to sell batches of homemade baking goodies to her friends especially when it came to the festive occasions such as Mooncake Festival and Chinese New Year. All family members would gather around the home and helped out to make the goodies.
Over the years, my mum has spent a lot of time and effort in learning baking and mastering the recipes. I remember during my childhood, I would give her a hand to glaze the cookies with egg yolk, try to shape the cookies and also pack them into the containers. For Chinese New Year, my mum will always have a line up of cookies for preparation, such as the pineapple tart, cornflake cookie, Kuih Bangkit, Kuih Kapit and peanut cookie is what I am sharing with you all today.
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Posted by Bel.C
Our Chinese New Year recipe continues with today’s special ingredient, prawn or shrimp. I came upon this prawn recipe from a Chinese cookbook in the bookstore a couple weeks ago (forgot the name), I thought it is easy yet meaningful that best suits this festive event. The name of the dish is called 如意蝦 , ru yi xia in Chinese, which literally means ones’ wish or dream will be fulfilled, a symbol of good luck. You can name it Good Luck Prawn or Wine-Seasoned Prawn (or Shrimp) with pandan leaves. I have substitute the recipe with 8 large tails of shrimps, that make up the lucky number 8 because it has the similar pronunciation for richness, fa (發) in Chinese. I hope this dish will bring good luck and many wonders to everyone.
This dish is really simple to be prepared, the main thing is to prepare the special wine with rice wine (上等白米酒) and rose wine (玫瑰露酒) or any wine preferred for taste and seasoning. These fresh shrimps are so good when they have adsorbed the aroma of the wine. Plus, they are wrapped in pandan (screwpine) leaves which give them an extra pandan fragrant. When the shrimps are cooked, you can see the vibrant color of reddish orange of the shrimps with a touch of shiny gloss surface, wrapped up in green color pandan leaves. I absolutely love the presentation that would definitely make the dinner more interesting.
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