Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies

 

I love Chinese New Year. In fact, one thing that I dread most for the 15 days of festivities including the days leading up to them and after that is the amount of delicacies that we have lying around the house and every relatives’ and friends’ house. Just like Christmas foodies, you only get to enjoy them once a year. It’s only this year that I’ve been ambitious enough to even begin to think about making cookies for Chinese New Year, albeit being quite homesick during times like these.

Anyway, I haven’t been able to find milk powder yet, so I’ve resorted to a recipe that I found online that doesn’t require this ingredient. You can find the original recipe here.

I was only able to find “blistered unsalted peanuts” from Trader Joe’s so I used them anyway. I didn’t realize that it already had quite a bit of oil on them when I proceed to blend them into fine powder, only to find them turning into a thick peanut butter paste, but yet pliable. In the end, I had to add a few handfuls of flour when trying to make little balls but I think they turned out OK. Taste wise, I think I would add a bit more salt to them in my next batch. They do melt in your mouth and you end up having a mouthful of peanut butter before you know it. I think I did OK for my first time

Ingredients

•  200g ground peanut powder
• 200g flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 100g icing sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 100g - 150g coarsely chopped peanut bits (or more, also accomplished in the food processor)
• 100g peanut oil or more/corn oil
• 1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tsp water (egg wash)

Method

1. Put 200g peanuts in a wok and dry fry over low heat until crunchy. Remove the thin membrane. (Skip this step if you are using blistered peanuts like me.)
2. Blend peanuts into fine powder.
3. Mix sifted flour +  baking powder, ground peanut powder, sifted icing sugar and salt in a big mixing bowl till well combined. (I put all the these into the food processor and used the plastic hook attachment to blend until it was nicely combined).
4. Toss in the chopped peanut bits and mix well.
5. Add in 100g peanut oil or more and mix till a piable dough is formed. (I did all these in the food processor and then took it out to knead with my hands with sprinkles of extra flour. Coat the surface with flour prior to placing dough on top.)
6. Shape as you wish. (The recipe owner used plastic bottle caps for this. I just rolled them into little balls and place half a peanut on top for decoration.)
7. Apply egg wash.
8. Bake on a greased and lined tray at 165C for 20 minutes or till golden brown.

Steaming Fish in Parchment Paper

I had just remembered a very convenient way of steaming food, i.e. wrapping in foil or parchment paper and cooking it in the oven.

I tried this technique with my Steamed Vegetarian Tuna recipe yesterday and it worked amazing, without the excess water that dripped from the wok cover. Another reason why this worked great for me is because I do not own a big wok that allows me to place a large place in for steaming, nor do I own a pair of the special tongs that you use to remove a steaming plate of food from the wok.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F degree.
2. Drizzle some white wine and soy sauce over and around fish. You could use fresh lemon juice or apple juice if you like. The liquid seasonings will create the steam inside the parchment pouch when the dish is baked.
3. Starting with the “point” of the paper heart, roll and crimp the edges until the fillets are totally encased and sealed in the “half-heart” shape.
4. Place the pouches on a cookie sheet and bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pouches are puffy or had turned light brown in colour.
5. Remove from oven and place the pouches on a plate.
6. Using a pair of scissors, carefully cut an “X” in the center of the pouch, or cut an outline of the half-heart shape on the inside of the folded edges. Use extreme caution because the steam is very hot.

Steamed Vegetarian Fish with Lemon and Pickled Mustard

I’ve been craving steamed vegetarian fish for a long time, and I finally have all the ingredients in my mind to make this dish. I must say that the lemon really complement the saltiness of the pickled mustard (hum choy) well.

Ingredients

• Vegetarian salmon, about 3 cm thick slices
• Soft tofu, about 3cm thick slices
• Pickled mustard (hum choy), dice the stems, use the leaves as base layer
• Tomatoes, sliced or halved (if using cherry tomatoes)
• Lemon juice and slices
• Ginge, sliced
• Enoki mushrooms
• Cilantro, chopped
• Soy sauce
• Salt & white pepper to taste

Method

1. Lay the pickled mustard leaves as the base in a plate.
2. Arrange the ginger, fish and tofu according to your liking.
3. Sprinkle the chopped pickled mustard stems and tomatoes around the fish and tofu.
4. Pour lemon juice and a dash of soy sauce, salt and pepper onto the dish and arrange lemon slices on top of the fish and tofu.
5. Steam the dish forabout 30 minutes. I’m not sure how long a normal fish would take to cook, so please make sure that your fish is cooked if you’re not using vegetarian salmon.
6. Sprinkle enoki mushrooms on the dish when the dish is done. Turn of the heat and replace the cover to allow the heat to just soften the enoki mushrooms.
7. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Preparation & cooking time: 45 minutes (15 to prepare, 30 to steam)…. 10 mins to eat… LOL…

Eggplant Stirfry with Chinese BBQ Sauce

This is a very simple stirfry dish again. I was cracking my head to think of how else I can cook my eggplants and I thought why not stirfry them with my can of Chinese BBQ sauce. My brain can barely function after work and after sitting in a traffic jam on the Detroit-Windsor border. As simple as my dishes look, I actually still have to think about how to cut the vegetables, what to use to accompany the dishes, what sauce to use, etc. Anyway, Chinese BBQ sauce  or sha cha jiang is a dipping sauce for Taiwanese hotpot dish. It is a bunch of blended spices soaked in oil. Some are spicy too.

Ingredients

• Chinese eggplants, sliced at an angle
• Cili padi or hot peppers, sliced thinly
• Chinese BBQ Sauce (sha cha jiang)

Method

1. Heat generous amount of oil in a wok. Eggplants use a lot of oil initially to be cooked, so if there’s too much oil for you after the eggplants are soft/cooked, simply remove the excess oil with a spoon.
2. Add in the sliced eggplants and pepper in the wok and cook over medium heat until the eggplants are soft and translucent.
3. Add a few teaspoons of the Chinese BBQ sauce to the eggplants and season with a pinch of salt and sugar.

Preparation & cooking time: 15 minutes

P/S: It took about 45 minutes for me to make this dish, the sweetpea dish and the seaweed soup I’ve posted prior to this. 

Sweetpea Mushrooms Stirfry

Another basic stirfry dish.

Ingredients

• Vegetarian ham, diced
• Sweetpeas, tear ends and “devein”
• Canned straw mushrooms, drained
• Enoki mushrooms, woody ends removed
• Mixed peas
• Vegetarian oyster sauce

Method

1. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok. Fry the diced ham until they start to brown.
2. Add sweetpeas and straw mushrooms to the wok. Cook until the sweetpeas start to turn bright green.
3. Toss a handful of mixed peas into the wok.
4. Pour a few tablespoons of oyster sauce to the vegetable mixture and season with sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Add enoki mushrooms to the wok and turn off the heat. Stir well and serve.

Preparation & cooking time: 15 minutes

Chinese Seaweed Dumpling Soup

I had to clarify that this is “Chinese” style of seaweed soup, because the Japanese and Koreans have their own version using wakame seaweed instead. The Chinese seaweed are sold in a cake and dehydrated.

I pretty much “freestyled” this popular soup, whereby I boiled slices of ginger in a pot of vegetable broth and water. You can also add sliced shitake or Chinese mushrooms to this soup, but I did not have any prepared ahead of them (the dehrydrated kind). I added a generous heap of seaweed, vegetarian fishballs and leftover dumplings into the boiling pot of ginger infused broth. When the dumplings and fishballs are cooked, I tossed in a few handfuls of mixed peas for some colour and contrast with the black sea of seaweed. Season with salt, vegetable seasoning and lots of pepper.

Prep & cooking time: 15 - 20 minutes