There are some foods that are traditional to celebrating the lunar new year in Chinese Culture. Among them are various dried fruit and root vegetables, such as melon, lotus seeds, and sliced lotus root, everything candied. There are also bright coloured foil-wrapped candies, typically red and adorned with gold Chinese characters for fortune.

Foil-Wrapped Candies
Red signifies good luck.

During the eve of the lunar new year, family and friends gather for a feast. One of the typical dishes served is whole chicken, representing prosperity.

Roast Chicken
The tradition, most likely has something to do with how cost and risk-intensive it is to raise livestock. Slaughtering a chicken was done only on a special occasion.

Fish is also served, with head and tail intact, signifying a good beginning and end to the coming year. Also, lettuce wraps are commonplace, because the Cantonese word for lettuce is a partial homonym for good fortune.

Me, I am fond of two dishes, traditionally served during new year: steamed turnip cake (lobok gao) and baked New Year cake (nian gao). Turnip cake is savoury. New Year Cake is sweet. Both are more puddings than cake, but such are the English translations. Both are baked in round tins, signifying family reunion.

Turnip Cake
Turnip cake is such a favourite of mine that I have spent a good amount of time working to learn how to make a good batch. While foodiePrints does sport a recipe, Jenn and I have developed the physical memory and learned the visual and textural cues to put a dish of turnip cake together without measurements.

In doing so, we discovered there are two methods to prepare the white turnip, called lobok in Cantonese and daikon in Japanese. To make turnip cake, white turnip is normally shredded coarsely using a box grater or other rasp implement. When I last visited Vancouver, I learned another method in my better half's grandmother's kitchen, chopped turnip cake. This lunar new year, we made two batches of turnip cake, one coarsely shredded and the other, brunoise.

Brunoise is a French culinary term for chopping 2.5-3 mm (1/8") cubes out of julienne vegetables.

Julienne and then brunoise white turnip

Brunoise white turnip
And yes, the brunoise was sloppy.

Brunoise Turnip Cake

Ready for Steaming

Freshly Steamed

Texture after Resting

Coarsely Shredded Turnip Cake

Ready for Steaming

Freshly Steamed

Texture after Resting

Comparison

After Resting, Bottom: Coarsely Shredded, Top: Brunoise

Slices, Left: Coarsely Shredded, Right: Brunoise

Which do I prefer? I prefer the brunoise turnip cake because the turnips, even while sweated and then steamed, have more "turnip" character (flavour and texture) than the shredded variation. But, such is my palette. For me, brunoise vs. shredding, takes approximately 15% more time.

What does turnip cake taste like? It is definitely a carbohydrate, tasting of turnip and starch.

To serve, I usually fry up slices in oil until edges crisp. Though, I will have to attempt the Singaporean version, frying slices up with sliced red chillis.

New Year Cake (Nian Gao)
Here is a recipe for nian gao.

Electric Egg Beater-based Stand Mixer

Nian Gao Baking

One, Golden Crusted, Done

Other, Golden Crusted, Done
What you'll Need:

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups of milk
• 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 package of glutinous rice flour

Method:

1. Preheat an oven to 325F
2. Crack the eggs into a metal bowl or the metal bowl of a stand mixer
3. Add the sugar to the eggs
4. Either use an egg beater or the beater attachment of a stand mixer to whip the egg and sugar mixture until it lightens
5. Add the milk and oil to the emulsion and beat until everything combines together
6. Slowly sift the rice flour into the wet mixture and beat until smooth
7. Pour the mixture into two 8" pie tins
8. Bake both for an hour

To serve, slice into wedges.

Slicing

Served

The texture of Nian Gao is dense. It is thick, sticky and sweet, signifying a rich and sweet life with abundance to come.

One Thursday evening, my better half came home with what Wikipedia calls an "angular shaped ball of rice, wrapped in reed or bamboo leaves." Phonetically, it is referred to as joong in Cantonese and jongzi in Mandarin. Confused, she told me her mom specifically defrosted the serving for me and she had already eaten hers. Then, she proceeded to steam it warm. Since I rather adore yellow bean joong with its sticky rice, piece of fatty pork, and salted duck or chicken egg yolk, I didn't protest and ate my dinner.

Joong, not to be confused with the square packages of sticky rice that are wrapped in lotus leaves, is sometimes served at Dim Sum, a brunch-style meal, consisting of small plates, mostly dumpling. The square packages, called lo mai gai in Cantonese (or nuo mi ji Mandarin), are classic Dim Sum and much more common. They are typically made with short grain (glutinous) rice, small pieces of boneless chicken, sliced Chinese sausage, green onions (scallions), and dried shrimp. Joong, however, are traditionally wrapped in a triangular shape because bamboo leaves are smaller, narrower, and generally more difficult to work with than lotus leaves. When I take friends for Dim Sum, I usually introduce Joong as a Chinese Tamale, which substitutes rice and bamboo leaves for corn masa and corn husks. If I still get a confused look, I ask them to unwrap one and try it. "It's good."

Making joong is labour intensive, so many people, myself included, purchase theirs from vendors and store them frozen. They freeze well, able to withstand the freezer for several months. I usually purchase mine in Toronto, in large quantities, and rush them home in a cooler before they spoil. I've yet to cajole someone to teach me how to wrap essentially fist-sized masses of rice and fillings with three bamboo leaves into the neat little packages and tie them so they don't come apart in a pot. E-gullet has a wonderful step by step guide of one technique with lots of pictures. Personally, I have never attempted it.

Here's a purchased joong I heated up for myself one evening for dinner. Steamed from frozen, I had but to cut the string, unwrap and enjoy, extremely convenient.

De-String

Unwrapped and served with five spice beef an onions

Filling
This is a yellow bean joong. The more common variety of joong substitutes yellow bean for peanuts, so if you have an allergy and you want to purchase joong, do ask the vendor which you are purchasing.

I find joong quite filling and satisfying. It is essentially meat and potatoes. Though, all the ingredients are cooked together so flavours meld somewhat.

I should note two things. Firstly, the reason I ate a joong that day (May 28, 2009) was to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, for which joong is traditionally served. Secondly, the joong described are savory. There is also a sweet variety that is filled with red bean paste. I prefer the savory version.

Before we begin, I feel I must point out that I love eating this dish. It's my absolute favourite food. I grew up eating it. I order it when I go out for dim sum. I purchase it from Chinese grocery stores when I visit Markahm, Ontario. And, I make it whenever I have the opportunity. It maybe its texture. It maybe its taste. It maybe the fact that every bite deliver bits of Chinese sausage, shitake mushrooms, green onions, and sometimes dried shrimp. Whatever the case, I adore eating turnip cake.

Phonetically, turnip cake is "lobàg göw" in Cantonese. It is essentially a steamed cake made from rice flower and shredded white turnip (aka: white radish). For some odd reason, white turnip is better known as daikon, which happens to be its Japanese name and the name North American grocery stores sell it with. However, even though stores have stocked white turnip for nearly a decade now, I still find that the cashiers have no idea what it is and have to frantically search their inventory lists when I decide to buy any. Typically, while I wait for the cashier to price my purchase, a customer will ask me what the heck I'm purchasing. They then turn up their noses when I tell them it is essentially a overgrown albino red radish. While I don't understand the reaction, I have evidence for this description. Once, when I ran short of white turnip for a turnip cake, I substituted about a half dozen peeled and shredded red radishes. The results were identical. I honestly couldn't tell the difference and I know my turnip cake.

That said, I've eaten a lot of turnip cake over the years. Some were better than others. I can even tell when a restaurant wants to save money and uses more flour slurry than white turnip in their turnip cake. To restaurant owners, I speak very badly of your restaurant when I see this type of behavior. If you need to cut corners, please do not allow your dishes to suffer. Reducing the ingredient for which a dish is named is borderline unforgivable.

When I make turnip cake at home, I follow a recipe that I learned from an old friend, named Josephina. Though somewhat unorthodox, I believe it embodies how to make quality turnip cake. Firstly, turnip cake must preserve the flavor of the shredded turnip. Secondly, every ingredient has a different cooking time. The process for making turnip cake must take this into consideration. Otherwise, some ingredients could be overdone while others, underdone. Either case would result in a poor turnip cake.

Recipe follows:

More after the jump...

If you followed the baked spring roll recipe from a while back, you'll know where to find spring roll wrappers. If not, wander down to the refrigerator case where tofu, meatless cheese, and other natural food products are sold. Once you pickup a stack of wrappers, you're are going to ask yourself, "What else can you do with these wrappers besides making spring rolls?" How about wrapping individual whole shrimp, deep frying them, and making finger food that would make any seafood-lover drool? It's crunchy, shrimpy, and oily. Can you really ask for more?

Personally, I've seen these edibles served on the carts at a Chinese restaurant during dim sum and on a coffee table as hor d'oeuvres during a dinner party. Many thanks to my better half's mom for showing me how to make these spring rolls. It so happened that she put a pile of wrappers and a bowl of tail-on shrimps in front of me when I looked a little bored one night.

Recipe follows:

More after the jump...

No one ever said that tofu was boring. Its uses and applications abound. At the mega-mart, you can find tofu in many products from roasts and burgers to vegan cheese. In the kitchen it can be just as versatile. Depending on what preparation you purchase, tofu can be used to make sauces, milk shakes, pie fillings, or even cakes. Of course, if a savory preparation interests you, traditional Asian cuisine dictates that tofu be deep deep fried, pan fried, or mixed into various stir-fries.

For Asian dishes, the tofu of choice comes in blocks of different firmness from silken (softest) to firm (pressed). The difference in texture is due to the quantity of remaining liquid. Tofu can be pressed, removing liquid and resulting in a firmer texture. Different recipes depend on different textures of tofu.

The following recipe uses "regular" or medium tofu blocks. These blocks can be purchased at most Asian food markets, like those on Somerset St in Ottawa. They come in white tubs, surrounded by water. Please note that proper storage of medium tofu involves prompt refrigeration and regular changes of the water.

Recipe follows:

More after the jump...