Mushroom for Chinese New Year

A MUST item for the Chinese New Year menu is mushroom - whether dried, canned or fresh. 

This year a new type of fresh mushroom from China hits town. This particular mushroom was introduced many years back but always in canned form. This year, it is available fresh. I remember many many years ago in Petaling Jaya when TK and I ordered a dish of jialan (伽蓝菜, a type of green leafy vegetables)  and bailing mushroom (白灵菇). When the dish was served, we were shocked to see the kailan interlaced with slices and slices of abalone! We were shocked at the seemingly VERY expensive dish and asked the Captain. He told us that the white slices that looked likes sliced abalone were actually the bailing mushroom (白灵菇) . We sighed with relief :-)

Here is the Bailing Mushroom (白灵菇) .... larger than the size of my palm.

Sliced bailing mushroom ...

Steamed, stir-fried or in steamboat, it looks like sliced abalone and is really delicious. Yummy!

Chinese New Year - Twentieth Day : 女娲再补天 or Nüwa Patch Up Sky Again

Today is the Twentieth Day of the Chinese New Year and is the day of 女娲再补天 or Nüwa Patched the Sky Again.

Legends has it that on the Twentieth Day of the Chinese New Year, a really big hole appeared in the sky and the Goddess 女娲 (Nüwa)补天 had to expend great efforts to patch up the hole in the sky.

As for the Tenth Day, on this day, in our family, we all eat 年糕 (niangao) to commemorate Her deeds.

Chinese New Year - Fifteenth Day : 元宵节 (Yuan Xiao Jie)

Today is 元宵节 (Yuan Xiao Jie) - the Fifteenth Day of the Chinese New Year and is also known as the Lantern Festival. It is also the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations

This morning, the family set up offerings to pray to our ancestors while in the evening, there will be a big family dinner.

However, for those young and unattached or unmarried, the evening is also for them to meet each other and possibly meet their future love or life partners. A lot of places organise evening riverside events where giggling females write their names and phone numbers on oranges to throw them into the rivers. Young men on boats will net them out for blind dates!

For the oldsters and the kids, it should be an evening of eating, fireworks and fire crackers!

Happy 元宵节 (Yuan Xiao Jie)!

Chinese New Year - Tenth Day : 女娲补天 or Nüwa Patched the Sky

The Tenth Day of the Chinese New Year is the day of 女娲补天 or Nüwa Patched the Sky.

Legends has it that on the Tenth Day of the Chinese New Year, a small hole appeared in the sky and the rain fell non-stop. To save the people on Earth from drowning, 女娲 (Nüwa)补天 or patched up the hole in the sky.

On this day, in our family, we all eat 年糕 (niangao) - sticky rice cake made only for Chinese New Year). 

We just slice the 年糕 into thin slices and eat them as they are, fried plain or with egg batter and best of all, fried as a sandwich of yam and 年糕.

Here is a plate of the fried plain 年糕 (niangao) ...

and another plate fried with yam slices... 

 Yummy :-) 

Chinese New Year - Seventh Day - 人 日 or Birthday of Mankind

The Seventh Day of the Chinese New Year is 人 日 or the Birthday of Mankind. Traditional belief is that the Goddess 女娲 (Nüwa) during the first ten days of the New year made the on each succeeding day, the Chicken, Dog, Goat, Pig, Bull, Horse, Human, Grains, Heaven and Earth.

On this day, one of the dishes during lunch must be a single dish of seven types of vegetables ..... for our family, we celebrate with 七 樣 菜 茶 or seven types of vegetables and tea, the tea being our 客 家 擂 茶 (Hakka ground tea).

For lunch today we have  .....

Piping hot  客 家 擂 茶 (Hakka ground tea).

Steamed rice with fried garlic and oil.

Dish of 七 樣 菜 茶 or seven types of vegetables.

A platter of bean curd, dried turnips, Chinese leek and dried prawn.

A plate of 樹 菜 (Sauropus androgynus)。
 

Of course, last but not least,  the roasted peanuts, whole or ground as required.

A most satisfying and healthy meal to celebrate the Birthday of Mankind.

Chinese New Year - Third Night - Wedding of the Mice

The third night of the Chinese New Year is also known as the Night of the Wedding of the Mice. The are lots of Chinese folk and orchestra music that celebrate this specific event and the music are some of the nicest to listen to!

On this night, people go to bed early and all the lights in the house are switched off so as not to disturb the Mice on their weddings. Some people also leave out some new year candies on the floor for the wedding :-)

Actually, after a week of frantic activities, it is nice to go to bed early and have a good rest.  With all the lights out, no visitor are likely to turn up!

Chinese New Year - Third Day - Day of the Poor Ghosts

The third day of the Chinese New Year is also the Day of the Poor Ghosts - poor in this case being lack of money! This is the day,we also clean up the house and then dumped the rubbish.

Story? 

Well, there was a woman whose second husband was a very rich man. The first husband was a gambler and ne'er do well.

One New Year, on the first day, her ex-husband came begging at her home. She recognized him but he was not aware of his ex-wife. So she asked him to wait and then went into her house to make Chinese dumpling. Into each dumpling, she hid a silver ingot. With some thirty or so of the dumplings, the husband would be able to lead a good life. She passed the dumplings to her ex-husband and reminded him to eat the dumplings while still hot.

He left with the dumplings but instead of eating them decided to sell them to get cash. When one guy bought one dumpling from him for two cents and bit into it, he found the silver ingot. The customer realised that there must be more to it than just plain dumpling and decided to buy the whole lot from the vendor for one silver ingot.

On the third day of the New Year, the woman again saw her ex-husband begging or food at her house. She wondered what happened and asked him into the kitchen. On hearing his story, she was so enraged, she took up the fire poker and hit him on the head, accidentally killed him. To hide the deed, she decided to clean up the house and throw the corpse out with the rubbish.

Hence, that day is now known as the Day of the Poor Ghosts. Not a day for visiting as the visitors are known as Poor Ghosts and, anyway, everyone is supposed to be cleaning up and clearing out the rubbish :-)

3 days to Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit or 4701

The family of my eldest sister specialises in making noodles and my three nephews all run their own noodle making businesses supplying fresh noodles to restaurants and noodle stalls in Kuching . They also supply (by air) to customers in West Malaysia and Singapore. My eldest brother-in-law was a chef before he became a noodle maker and he was a really good chef. His festival dinners were meals to look forward to! Since he passed away, three of his children have mastered their father's skills in cooking.

Our festival meal today meal was prepared by his third son - Fah.

To start off, we have the (five fragrances meat roll) ....

Next, we have chicken wings in a honey sauce. This is certainly one of my mum's favourite dish.
 

Then curry chicken ....

This next dish is my favourite - a thick slab of pork (back thigh meat - with a thick layer of fat) stewed with mushroom, cuttle fish, scallops and chestnuts. 

For soup, we have stuffed winter melon ....

 

Finally, fried fresh noodles - this noodle is specially hand-made with flour and eggs only. The egg noodle is much nicer than the normal noodle.

Yummy!!!

11 days to Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit or 4701

It is still 11 days to the Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit and the feasting has already started :-) 

As in previous years, our non-Chinese friends and neighbours start to cook and send over the food. Yesterday, one of our Muslim Indian neighbour send over, as he had done for  decades,  various home-made dishes.

For this year ...

Briyani Rice .... chock full of vegetables and herbs. Our neighbour certainly cook the best briyani we have ever eaten in Malaysia or Singapore or elsewhere!).

 

Grilled Chicken drum sticks .. yummy!

This sour and spicy brinjal is another favourite of the family ... again, we have no eaten anything similar yet over the years to beat this dish!!

The nice cold cucumber side dish ....

Finally, the yummy sago and oatmeal dessert!!
 

A really great meal to start off the countdown to the Year of the Rabbit!