Pan-Fried Stuffed Lotus Roots

Eating lotus root is auspicious for Chinese as we believed that eating it during Chinese New Year will foster the grow of your new venture or business.  When I saw this dish on Chinese T.V. cooking show, I thought that it would be perfect for Chinese New Year.  And then I saw a similar dish at a Taiwanese cooking show, was it asking me to make it?  Haha...  Anyway, it looked delicious and I couldn't wait to try it myself.  Sharing here is my version.  I served it with a sauce so that the stuffed lotus root remain crispy.  A bit time consuming to make this but the result is well worth the effort.

Today is also 人日.  The 7th day of Chinese New Year and also everyone birthday.  祝大家人日快乐!! This day people normally celebrate it with longevity noodle, tang yuen (glutinous balls), yee sang (raw fish salad) and another great feast!

 
Crispy stuffed lotus root drizzled with scallion garlic soy sauce.  Click next for the step-by-step pictures guide.

I am also sharing this recipe with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  The deadline for submission has been extended to Feb 6th, the last day of CNY.  So go see the roundup on the 7th!  :-)

Frozen Tofu with Shiitake and Dried Lily Buds

Dried lily buds (金針菜) is also called golden needle vegetable but don't confuse it with dried golden needle mushroom (dried enoki mushroom) as they look almost similar.  Usually found in Asian supermarket where they sell dried woodear and mushroom.  Once open, I would keep it in a Ziploc bag and in the refrigerator.  When you want to use it, you need to soften it in the water first.  I often see dried lily buds in auspicious Chinese dishes because it symbolizes wealth for the Chinese when celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year.  Shiitake mushroom symbolizes longevity + opportunity and yellow color tofu symbolizes wealth and happiness (like dried beancurd stick and fried tofu puff).  Since frozen tofu is yellow in color and yellow means gold in Chinese, it should symbolizes wealth and happiness.  Whereas the fresh white tofu is not included as it is unlucky for new year as the color white means death and misfortune. You can braise your tofu in a sauce to change the color or pan-fried the tofu until golden before stir-frying to change your luck if you are superstitious like me.

This would make a great vegetarian Chinese New Year dish too!   The frozen tofu cubes and mushrooms soaked up all the flavor of the sauce and made this dish such a plus!  Imagine biting into the spongy and juicy cubed tofu and flavorful mushrooms!!

I am sharing this recipe with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  Go check out the roundup on Feb 1st.  I know I will!  :-)

Korean Mungbean Flatcake (Nokdu Buchimgae)

While flipping through a Korean cookbook, one pancake or flatcake dish stood up to me.  Because it used ground mung bean paste as a batter and it really intriguing me.  I never seen it in Malaysian cooking and it spiked my curiosity.  Furthermore, this recipe appeared again and again in several different cookbooks.  They are all different but one thing for sure is the ground mung bean paste.  Hence, I set to work with my own version with what I have at home and replaced the kimchi with spicy radish.   Instead of raw beef or pork, I used leftover fried chicken breast which I took off the skin and cut off the fried part.  Since everything were cooked, I just pan-fried until the flatcake became crispy and the middle no longer soft, you can press with your finger or spatula.

It can be called Jun or Buchimgae and you can make it all vegetarian by omitting the poultry or meat.  It will be as delicious!  Korean served this dish to welcome the new year too.  With this post, I want to wish all Korean a happy lunar new year!

Verdict:  I loved it!!  All seem to be married well together, the crispy bite on the outside and the soft and fluffy inside and the slightly nutty taste from the ground mung bean, what can I say but I will certainly make this again!  Since I seasoned the batter (oh well the Chinese in me, got to season everything!), it's good even without the sauce but tastes even better with the sauce. 

Crispy on the outside, soft and slightly nutty inside, so good!

Happy Lunar New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Wishing all my readers a prosperous, happy and healthy Chinese New Year!!  Be glad that you get to spend quality time with your family and relative.  Nothing beat reunion dinner and the continuous visiting in relatives' houses for more eats and ang pows (red packet).

The things that I was most looking forward to Chinese New Year when I was young were wearing new clothes and shoes and visiting both grandmas and relatives.  Eating the Chinese New Year sweets, cookies and all the auspicious food and not forgetting receiving the red packets as well wishes.  Playing with fire crackers were fun too and I especially loved the atmosphere back home, very festive.  Moving here, I still try to provide my girls with these CNY tradition, except they don't get to visit both their grandparents and relatives.  We have friends instead.

Red Dates and Dried Longan Konnyaku Jelly

The idea of making this came from Gina Choong.  She has a blog Taste of Time and a baking supply store in Singapore.  Go visit her and her store if you are in Singapore, she is pretty popular!  Do visit her blog for more information.  I have known her before I started this blog in her Kitchen Capers forum, so back in 2004?  Wow, we go way back and we haven't even met once.  I hope I will get to meet her at her store when I am in Singapore in the future.  I will make an effort to go see her and surprise her!  :)  Actually one of the members in her forum encouraged me to write a food blog and see where I am today?  Without her persistent, I won't even know what is blogging back then.  Thank you!

I saw a picture of this at Gina's FB (well different mold but basically the same thing) and thought it would make such a great Chinese New Year dessert!  I had never tried using Chinese tea in making konnyaku jelly before hence the kick was there (I love to challenge myself in new thing) and that was all the motivation I needed.  I chose this pineapple mold because pineapple "Ong lai" means prosperity in Chinese.  Jujube (red date) means wealth, prosperity and fertility (I don't need this, haha) and longan (龙眼, dragon eye) means many good son (well for the married couples who want a son).  For Chinese, we have an old tale that if you are pregnant and someone older in your family dream of a dragon, you are highly carrying a son.

With that said, I am sharing this dessert with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  Go check out the roundup on Feb 1st.  :-)

LCOM's Pizzelle (Chocolate Orange Pizzelle)

My only new cookie for this year, 2012.  By all means, this is not the usual pizzelle cookies, but just a cookie I created that uses a pizzelle press to make.  I was not as impressed with my previous recipe because I thought the rice flour taste was too strong.  Hence, in this recipe, I reduced the rice flour and replaced it with all-purpose flour, added cocoa powder and orange extract and made it into a Chocolate Orange flavored pizzelle.  I loved the pairing of chocolate and orange and this pizzelle remains crispy once baked.

Perhaps the color was not as appetizing (since I used specially dark cocoa powder) but I do love the taste of orange and cocoa powder.  I managed to get rid of the rice flour taste too.