Hong Kong Chinese New Year Foods

Chinese New Year is a time for me to binge. You may notice that I have a fasting blog and if you read this post, you're sure that I can recover speedily after binge eating.

During the new year holidays, we visit relatives and the gatherings are all about eating. Here I'm going to share with you some of my favourite new year foods.  And if your planning a visit soon make sure you find the best cheap travel offers out there.

New Year Puddings

Turnip Pudding is one of my must eats. If you've ever read about my health rules in my fasting blog, you'll realise that I enjoy eating fresh and natural. If you don't have the experience of eating turnip pudding freshly from the steamer, I'll suggest your learning to cook it. Here's Anna's turnip pudding recipe. Every year, me and my sister work together to make our own turnip pudding and eat fresh. Woo, yummy! Once you've tried eating fresh, you would never want to eat the re-heated ones, neither pan fried, steam or micro-wave.

My Home-made Turnip Pudding 2012 蘿蔔糕

Water Chestnut Pudding 馬蹄糕
This is a very popular Cantonese dessert year round. But we eat a lot of it during the new year. Little bit sticky but very delicious. We seldom make this at home, but eat at restaurants.

Sticky Nan Gao (New Year Pudding)
My sister-in-law made it at home and served us during our home visit. It is very sticky and chewy, but nice. We had two flavours: vanilla and coconut. It is so sticky that during pan frying, we had to add some egg solution so that the pieces won't stick together.

Home-made Nan Gao 年糕,年糕, 年年高!

In Cantonese, Gao (pudding) sounds like Grow, therefore Gaos are very popular foods during Chinese New Year.

Fa Cai (lucky money) Hao Shi (good business) Da Li (lots of profit) Dumplings 發財好市大利燒賣 - Fa Cai - is the black hairy vegetable; Hao Shi - is the dry oyster; Da Li - is the pig's tongue. This dumpling trio is a must eat when we have our family dim sum lunch gathering on the first day of Chinese New Year. All these foods are given good names and with valuable meaning in Chinese.

發財好市大利燒賣

After our home visit to my brother's house, he took us to a restaurant in Shatin for dinner. There was some unexpected pleasure as he ordered a few old Hong Kong dishes that reminded me of my childhood.

Stir Fried Kale with Preserved Meats 芥蘭炒臘味

This dish looks simple but few restaurants serve it nowadays. And we can only taste in cold winter days. It was really well done with 'heat of wok'. Do you see the smoke (top left corner of the photo)?

Stir Fried Kale with Preserved Meats芥蘭炒臘味

Pork's Knuckle in Hot Pot 梅子豬手煲

There are plums and pineapples in this dish. So it is a little bit sweet and sour however won't conflict the overall knuckle's flavour. Few chefs use this recipe nowadays. Again, very well done, though the waiting time is a bit long (roughly 40 minutes), but we all love it!

Pork's Kunckle in Hot Pot 梅子豬手煲

Stir Fried Goose Intestine with Pepper and Pickles 味菜炒鵝腸

Does this look like flat noodle? Nope. It may be difficult for you to imagine, it is goose intestine. Again, few restaurants serve this dish nowadays. Only some Chiu Chau restaurants do. It is quite time consuming in preparing the goose intestines. But the chef did a great job. It was not fatty at all and very crunchy. If you were to mention some rare foods that Chinese eat, would you include goose intestine?

Stir Fried Goose Intestine 味菜炒鵝腸

Hong Kong Food Blog - Chinese New Year Foods

Snowy Moon Cake

Today is Mid Autumn Festival – August 15 in Chinese calendar. Well the most popular festival food is of course Moon Cake. This year I really want to try snowy moon cake. Though this new breed of moon cake was invented some years ago, I didn’t try it until this year.

The other day I passed by Wing Wah, a famous Hong Kong Chinese bakery, and bought a pack of their icy moon cake. Icy and snowy, same thing. As its creator Taipan calls it snowy moon cake, I’ll call it snowy moon cake.

Traditional moon cake is made of lotus seed paste and salty egg yolks, but snowy moon cake has only the shape of a moon cake but the ingredients are completely different. There are many choices of flavours but my favourite is mango. Unfortunately the saleswoman gave me a pack of coffee. It’s quite expensive, I must say. Two 1-inch cakes cost HK$40 (US$5.13) which means HK$20 for one cake which is only good for couple of bites. If it is not a festival food, I would never buy such an expensive cake.


The Moon and Seven Stars – is another traditional moon cake being interpreted by snowy moon cake. One big (the moon) being accompanied by seven small (stars) cakes - is usually very expensive. My brother received a gift pack of Maxim’s snowy moon cake this year and I was glad to have a chance to share a tiny piece of all the eight flavours.


Moon
燕窩綠豆蓉 Bird’s Nest Green Bean Paste
Stars
1. 藍莓芝士 blueberry and cheese
2. 芒果脆脆 mango dip
3. 楊枝甘露 pomelo and grape fruit
4. 抺茶甘栗 green tea and chestnut
5. 滑滑奶黃 milky egg
6. 天使白朱古力脆脆 angel dip (white chocolate)
7. 魔鬼脆脆 devil dip (black chocolate)


Another highlight of the Mid Autumn Festival is lanterns. The star fruit and rabbit lanterns are the most traditional that almost every Chinese kid (including adults when they were kids) must have played round with. See my star fruit lantern below.



Hong Kong Food Blog - Snowy Moon Cake

Sticky Rice Dumplings at Tuen Ng Festival

Dragon Boat Festival – the 5th day of May in the Chinese calendar, falls on the 6th day of June in 2011. It is an important festival in Chinese tradition. In Hong Kong, the two most important traditions are the eating of Rice Dumplings and Dragon Boat Races.

Unlike other festival foods, rice dumplings are available in restaurants throughout the year. Of course, most people would love to eat them around Tuen Ng Festival. Some people made them at home, some choose to eat at restaurants. I am someone in between. I bought them as take-away and eat at home. Here were the default dumplings that I ate at home yesterday, which was the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. I like to eat with soy sauce, my sister in law likes to go with sugar. It all depend on your personal taste. But both sugar and soy sauce are both served if you eat at a restaurant.

Default Dumplings (咸肉糉)

If you were a food lover, you may want to know that there are three major categories of sticky rice dumplings to be eaten at Tuen Ng Festival, which is also known as the Dragon Boat Festival. The default dumplings (咸肉糉) were generally made of sticky rice, boiled green bean with stuffing of stewed pork and typically a salty egg yolk. The grand dumplings (裏蒸糉) are usually larger in size and have more stuffing like mushrooms, chicken and many others. The sweet dumplings are named alkaline water dumplings (碱水糉) in Chinese, usually with some lotus seed paste as stuffing. They are generally longer and slimmer in shape.

Grand Dumplings (裏蒸糉)

Sweet Dumplings (碱水糉) (right hand side, yellow in color) Click here to find out how rice dumplings are madeClick here to find out about Dragon Boat Race in Hong Kong

Origin of the Dragon Boat Festival

It is a festival in memory of the patriot poet Qu Yuan who committed death exhortation to the emperor by drowning himself in 277 BC. The origin of rice dumplings were meant to be thrown into the water so fishes eat the dumplings and won’t eat the body of Qu Yuan. Likewise, the dragon boats were there to create noises to scare away the fishes.

Hong Kong Food Blog - Sticky Rice Dumplings at Dragon Boat Festival

Sweet Vinegar with Ginger, Knuckles and Eggs

In Cantonese culture, there are specific foods that we distribute to relatives, friends and almost anybody to celebrate the birth of a new family member. They are namely:

• Chicken Wine Soup (when the baby is 12-day old)


• Sweet Vinegar with Ginger, Knuckles and Eggs (any time after the baby’s birth)


• Red Eggs (when the baby is one-month old)

Recently my niece gave birth to a baby boy and I was promoted to a grand-mom level. All of our family members were invited to her house to taste the sweet vinegar and the chicken wine soup to celebrate her baby’s 12-day.

While the baby’s parents are usually busy taking care of the baby, it is usually the grand parents taking care of the cooking of sweet vinegar. They started cooking the vinegar a month ahead of the baby’s birth. They kept cooking and cooking day after day to achieve the dark color. The longer the vinegar is cooked, the better it will be.

Sweet Vinegar with Ginger, Knuckles and EggsDon’t be scared by its dark color. It is very delicious. It is so delicious that some people like to eat it even though they don’t have a new born baby at home. And they don’t have friends or relatively with new born babies at home to give them this delicious food. Some restaurants therefore serve this as a dim sum. So next time when you are in Hong Kong, if you are lucky enough to go to a dim sum restaurant serving sweet vinegar with knuckle, ginger and eggs, make sure to order it.

I love these eggs so much. They are so yummy!

Me and My 12-Day-Old Grand-Nephew (No Name Yet!)

We were even given some to take home. Note: vinegar cannot go with plastic utensils. So the host gave us glass jars.

Why is this combination: sweet vinegar, knuckle (pig’s rear leg), ginger and eggs? It is a matter of Chinese wisdom. This combination is mainly for the benefit of the new mother. Sweet vinegar and ginger has medical functions of warding off body cold and rheumatism, it also improves digestive system. It generally strengthens the new mother’s metabolism. Knuckles will compensate her lost of collagen during pregnancy. Eggs are of course to give her extra protein.

Hong Kong Food Blog - Foods To Celebrate The Birth of A New Family Member

Hong Kong Chinese New Year Foods

Today is the 7th day of Chinese New Year. Chinese traditional call it 'Man's day', meaning the birthday of everybody. One of the Hong Kong Cantonese traditions is to eat congee. We've therefore decided to cook congee at home. In fact, we eat congee every year on this same day.

Congee in Cantonese is called 粥 which sounds like 足 which means 'satisfaction', meaning we are happy with what we have. Make good sense? That's why we eat congee on this everybody's birthday.

Anna eating congee at home on the 7th day of Chinese New Year

We've put lecttuce and fish balls in the congee. These are associated with good meaning as well. Fish - surplus 魚(餘), Lecttuce - create wealth 生菜(生財). See my big fish ball!!

Congee with Lecttuce and Fish Balls 生財鯪魚球粥

Here are the other foods we eat during Chinese New Year.

Assorted veggies cooked with preserved beancurd. This of course has a good meaning as well - 開齋 means 'a good start'.

Assorted Vegetables 羅漢齋

Candies Platter is what we prepare at home to welcome visiting friends and relatives. Yes, home visit is another Chinese New Year Tradition here in Hong Kong. The candies platter can be very creative. But roasted mellon seeds are among the musts.

Candies Platter 全盒

There are many kinds of roasted mellon seeds - black, red and white.

Dim Sum is a must. Here is what we had:

Puddings - growth 糕(高) - turnip pudding (see my previsou post); on the table, there were two kinds of puddings - the sticky one and the spongy one.

Pig's tongue - profit 利

Fish ball - surplus 魚(餘)

Oyster - good business 豪士(好市)

Hairy vegetable - lucky money 髮菜(發財)

Let's have a closer look.

Dumplings with pig's tongue, oyster and hairy vegetable

發財好市大利

Fish balls with hairy vegetable 髮菜鯪魚球
恭喜發財!
Happy New Year!

Hong Kong Food Blog - Hong Kong Chinese New Year Foods

How To Cook Turnip Pudding

Turnip pudding is highly popular among Cantonese families as a Chinese New Year festival food. Many of us DIY at home and it's lots of fun. Today is the CNY eve and I have been busy making turnip pudding at home.

I don't have any professional recipe, all steps were inherited from my mother which in turn was from many generations before. There are many steps but we enjoy doing it.

How To Cook Turnip Pudding - Step by Step

1. Smash 3.6kg of turnips. This is good for 3 plates of 8 inches each.
2. Get some preserved meats such as lap cheung, dry shrimps or mushrooms and cut them into small pieces.
3. Boiled the smashed turnips. Add pinches of salt, sugar, chicken powder and any other seasoning such as pepper or seasame oil to your own taste.
4. Stir fry the preserved meats briefly.
5. Mix the boiled turnips, preserved meats and add 500 grams of rice flour (粘米粉) to the mixture. Use only 粘米粉 for the making of turnip pudding. Add rice flour bit by bit and stir well while adding.
6. Divide the pudding mixture into pudding plates.
7. Steam for 1.5 hours and start eating.

Warning: Do NOT Use These Cooking Oils

Cooking Turnip Pudding To Celebrate
Chinese New Year
蒸蘿蔔糕賀新年!

Step 1 - Smash the turnips 刨蘿蔔

Step 2 - get ready the meats

Step 5 - See I'm working hard in mixing

Here is my turnip pudding mixture

My sister is dividing them into various pudding plates

Going to steam

Ready to eat

Time to eat - enjoying my hardwork.

I enjoy eating turnip pudding immediately after cooking. This is the best time and most delicious way to eat turnip pudding. When it cools down, you need to reheat by steaming, pan fried or micro-wave. Honestly I don't like any of these methods as the turnip pudding will be less delicious. If you want to eat the most yummy turnip pudding, make it yourself and eat it immediately after steaming. Try it out. I'm sure you'll agree with me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI !

Hong Kong Food Blog - Turnip Pudding