Being far from home this Chinese New Year we too did not miss much of this awesome celebration. There were no public holidays, no elaborate decorations along streets and malls neither were there any 'DONG DONG DONG QIANG' music around. It was just another normal week and another normal few days of our uni summer break.
Chinese New Year is my favourite time of the year, that's because it's the only time of the year where every family member puts all their effort in decorating their houses and meet together for a feast during new year's eve, also the abundance cookies and the standard CNY agenda which is eat, eat and eat. And then the fun part is of course meeting up with friends, spending the whole day going house to house, chatting and eating(again) all the way till midnight. It was clear that I won't be experiencing all of that this year, but it wasn't too bad after all.
As I mention earlier that apart from family gatherings and visiting and angpaus, CNY is all about food and eating (we all know that) so be prepared for a series of food pictures.
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As mention by Yuan in the kuih bahulu recipe post, she says I have a very weird tradition where we actually have bahulu during CNY. Haha, I never knew this fact, but it is true that my grandmother makes tins and tins of bahulu every CNY! While others enjoy prawn crackers, chocolate chip cookies, starch cookies (whatever that white cookie is called in english, the one that melts in your mouth), pork jerky etc, I enjoy indulging in my grandmother's homemade bahulu and kau kau! Now I do not know whether there is a proper word for kau kau, maybe my grandmother created this cookie, basically it is a biscuit made from egg, sugar and flour and cut into diamond shape pieces then deep fry in oil. I heard the word kau kau resembles the crispy sound when you bite into it. So this CNY, while people were enjoying eating cookies, we enjoyed making AND eating them!
kuih bahulu
kau kau
On CNY's eve we had steamboat with our friends over at his house. Look at the amount of food! There's assorted fishballs, tofu, fishcakes, potato, crab-stick, mushrooms, bean curd shao mai, veges and meat. And I made my grandmother's signature meatball to go with the steamboat too! Yummers, there were 8 of us, and we couldn't finish all these so we decided to have Round 2 the next day.
grandma's signature meatball!
I am not sure whether it is a culture to actually have steamboat during CNY, at least not in Malaysia I suppose.... don't know about that, but it is certainly not what me and my family have back home. So this was actually my first time having steamboat for reunion dinner, a very special thing to experience.
This is Mimi the feral/stray/house cat. He's tame (maybe feral isn't the right word) and comes in and out while we were having our meal. Give him a hug, he'll give you a soft headbutt or a kiss! Continue to pet him and he'll start drooling!!!
O.O
Huge strawberries fresh from the farm!
The next day both of us invited 2 of our friends over for a simple dinner. Here's again my grandma's signature meatball (it keeps appearing I think I should really do a recipe for it), zai choi and a simple stir fry vege, after which was followed with my very own home made bubble milk tea!
Chocolate flavoured milk tea.
And the following day was super random, as the both of us made another round of steamboat, this time much simpler and healthier(I think), there's just some mushrooms, vege, corn, prawns, and we also wrapped some wonton, I apologise for not having any pictures of the delicious pan fried wonton! They were too good we dug in before anyone thought of taking pictures of it. Steamboat and beer is the best combination, especially during summer.
Here's another bubble tea I made few days ago. I name it four layer ice coffee. The four layers are: pearl, evaporated milk, chilled coffee and milk foam.
Have you tried cold water process when brewing coffee? It is the best process to use for iced coffee. Cold water process produces coffee that does not smell very strong, but has a very strong and unique taste when you drink it, however it is also said to have very low acidity, which is good!
......I've saved the best for last......
So here's the epic story of our pineapple tarts:
You've seen our successful recipes, so here's a little bit of 'behind the scenes' of how much pain(and laughter) we sometimes go through. We all know CNY is well associated with pineapple, the colour yellow means gold or prosperity. So pineapple tarts are always part of the goodies you'll see and eat during this festive season.
First was to make the pineapple jam.... that wasn't too difficult, there were two of us to stir for one hour, not too bad, not too bad....
The next day was to make the pastry. Till today, we still have no idea what was wrong with the pastry. Was it too much butter, too little flour? Seems like the pastry melts during the baking process... So screw whatever fantasies we had on our successful pineapple tarts *the moment of joy and success when we open the oven door and see those beautiful shining tarts beacon like gold.......* In reality, it was a moment of shock and disappointment when we saw the 'melted' tarts, yuck so unappealing....
But they tasted great to our surprise! The other down side is that we have to be careful eating as the tart tend to brittle and crumble. Eating with a spoon is a wise option. I just couldn't stop laughing at these..... even now.
The rest of CNY was mostly spent at home, working on recipes and enjoying our holidays to the max, playing the keyboard, singing, reading.... Uni will resume next week, feeling heavy about going back to the same daily routine, but I believe it is going to be a good year. And I hope the same for all of you, may you all have a splendid year!
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