CNY food in Melbourne

Voila! How's 2014 been treating everyone? CNY has been quiet here in Melbourne, as usual, but we tried to create the atmosphere by making FOOD, food and MORE food. What is CNY without food btw? LOL. Anyway, here's a recap of some of the homemade stuff we had during CNY:

Fresh from the grill

Homemade Bak Kwa! 

Cookies - Peanut, crunchy almond, pineapple tarts, and milo koalas

Packed some to send out as gifts to friends

A must for Beijingers - dumplings

A must for Hakka-ers - Pork trotter vinegar (Chu Kiok Son)

Shanghai-nin delicacy - Kao Fu

Malaysian Chinese seaweed cracker

Hubby's best stir-fry lobster

Another must for Hakka-ers - Yam with pork belly (Kiu NYIUK) 

Kumquat marmalade - thanks to kumquats from neighbour

Looking at all the photos, i am so proud of myself this year for being brave enough to attempt some of the delicacies which i never thought i would be able to make. My most favourite is kiu-nyiuk ... pretty good for a first timer. All thanks to tips from mom and hubby who helped me fried the yam and pork. 

  

CNY and Valentine's Day

My sweetie pie greeting us a wonderful Lunar New Year

I have died everyday waiting for you; darling dont be afraid i have loved you for a thousand years;i'll love you for a thousand more....

 

 

Happy Belated Valentine's Day and Gong Xi Gong Xi folks! How did your hols go? We had a very quiet festive season here in Melbourne; it's not a public holiday and people don't celebrate here but we do have firecrackers and carnival events, which shows that the chinese population is growing in this city.

 

Valentine's Day was like any other day for us too, except that we managed to steal some time to watch Les Miserables. Wasn't tat a great movie? Love it, although i find it a bit tad too long.

 

Though quiet, Micaiah had a great time embracing his first Lunar New Year. My uncle (his granduncle) and his family came and had a reunion lunch with us. Both Michael and I worked hard that day to prepare the spread and it was a great time gathering and feasting with each other. Thank God for CNY!

 

The spread minus the abalones!

 

I tried to make it looked more 'CNY'.

 

I also managed to make CNY goodies such as the must have pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, date cookies, seaweed crackers, nian gao popiahs (yes!! n they were good), kek lapis and roasted nuts. Gave some to the moms in my playgroup, neighbour, friends and uncle.

 

On the third day of CNY, we took some time out to the beach in Frankston which is about an hour drive from Melbourne. It was the first long car trip for Micaiah, and ended up a rather unpleasant one as he was getting uncomfortable and started crying hard before we even got home! My poor dear was so terrified; it took us some time to comfort and calm him down. Was it the infant seat or the fact that it is facing backwards that upsets him? Nowadays he seems to dislike car trips, and i mean a lot.

 

Well this is my rock star trying to cover from the shinning sun and heat at the beach. Haha.

 

We are having more visitors tomorrow for steamboat and i am still comtemplating if i should bake a cheesecake. OR maybe not. LOL.

Steamed Black Sesame Buns

I'm back to my crazy bao fantasy. Just submitted last assignment last Monday and exam is in 5 days! I took some time off in between the revision to make these lovely tea treats (or brekkie) yesterday noon; baking just refreshes me! I don't know how to cope with the stress without baking, honestly. 

They are fairly simple, only took me  two n half hours to get the result with an hour waiting time in between. Made them with black sesame filling this time (voted as my most fave bao nowadays!) n i only got 7 out of the dough (thanks to my small steamer). 4 gone, three left in the freezer. 

Got to go back to my soil stress n Mohr Circles now. Sigh, i am an engineer with very poor statistical and data analysis skills. Time series makes me dizzy. N matlab programming makes me wan to cry.

Jiao Zis - Down Under version

To be married to a Chinese guy from a city called Beijing, one of the compulsory traits to follow is learning to love jiao-zis (dumplings). Not only must one love to eat, but also love to make, wrap, boil and serve. I should have realised, however, up to this point i would't say I love dumplings. The most i cld gobble upon one time was five pieces, but usually it's only 2-3 pieces. N my hubby? 20-30 pieces.

Dumpling or jiao zi is one of the staple foods of the Northern Chinese communities. My in laws eat them twice a week in average, even if that means sparing 2-3 hours preparing them. Every woman has to boil them while serving, which means, you are likely to eat only after the men are satisfied with the number of dumplings they have consumed. Dumplings must be served warm and fresh from boiling. According to mom-in-law, it's easy n less trouble. Because the dumpling in itself has combined everything a Chinese meal must have: meat, vege n starch (being the skin); hence one does not have to worry about coming up with 2-3 dishes. I wouldn't agree further; it's pretty true.

Back in M'sia, we have shui jiaos as another version of jiao zis. Dun be confused, they are the same thing. The only difference is perhaps, jiao zis contain lotsa vege (nearly 50 - 50 to meat portion) while shui jiaos, as you can find, are mostly made of minced pork n sometimes prawns. Nowadays, they have century egg shui jiaos ( which i love so much) and lots more other versions; but jiao zis are always meat n vege. There are pork chinese cabbage; beef carrots; lamb white melon/spring onion, etc. etc. Basically you can combine anything you like in jiao zis; but make sure it's 50% meat and 50% vege. All minced and julienned finely.

I remember my first time learning to make dumplings (Refer to here). How time flies! My mom in law is a top masterchef when comes to dumplings; for her, julienning/shredding/grating or watever you call to make sure the veges are fine enough, are no hassle work but sth which she enjoys very much. Dun mention about the skin dough. It's just peanut to her.

For me, it's a big learning process. I still buy ready made skins. How pathetic, after nearly 3 years of our marriage, i've only made dumplings - - - well, less than 'one handful of fingers' times for my hub. No wonder each time i ask him wat wld he like to eat; he wld answer teasingly; jiao zis!

Our version: Pork n Chinese Celery.

Too lazy to make my own skin, i used ready made ones.

Boil in boiling water, and add cold water twice before they are officially cooked.

 Serve with black vinegar, sometimes chilli and ginger soy sauce.

I made this batch yesterday n he had 20 pieces. Practice makes perfect huh? I will thrive ....

My sister went frantic crazy after i tagged her on Facebook as an initiative to teach her how to make dumplings. Unlike me, she loves dumplings like how i love char sao bao. Poor thing, try to make one yourself, dear!

The Chinese Dumpling Jiao Zi/Shui Jiao

Another day over again. It's amazing how time can actually fly, especially when happiness and joy is around. Previously people talk of one minute, now, it's more of a day thingy; today it's this case, and after today, the scenario may not be today's case anymore, not to mention next week's case. Confusing huh? Not at all; it's just life.

What i did today, is one question i normally ask myself before i doze off every night. And, believe it or not, although i aimed to do something better the next day, it's never the case and i would still feel i have wasted another day.

Well, today is a bit bit different (as you can see from the title), but before i proceed on, let me justify why the images are so much poorer this time. I know i shouldn't blame God's wonderful creation, the sun, but no matter how hard i look, it seems to be MIA almost the whole day today! Gone with the wind?? Doubt that, coz it was so windy that all the trees nearly went botak. The sky was dull and white greyish; simply the signs of winter.

Just in case you think i'm bluffing, here are two evidences: the first pic was snapped yesterday. Clear beautiful blue sky; LOVELY. (apart that my fave yellow tree is botak di :'-( ).

And, same second pic snapped today: Lacking blue sky huh?

Ya, so that was the reason. Now, back to why today is different, hehe, coz i assisted mom in law to make Jiao Zi! No cakes, no tarts, no baking business but Jiao Zi!!

Jiao Zi or Shui Jiao is a traditional Chinese food. According to my personal research, the Chinese characters for "Jiaozi" actually refer to the arrival of the Chinese New Year at midnight. "Jiao" means "join," while "zi" is a reference to the first and eleventh hour (branch) of Dizhi or midnight on the Western clock.

Jiaozi is basically ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. Chinese dumplings (jiaozi) may be divided into various types depending on how they are cooked:

1. Boiled which we normally know as shui jiao or literally 'water dumplings'

2. Steamed; zheng jiao (steam-dumpling)

3. Shallow fried; guotie (dry fried) or what we refer as 'wo tie'

Common dumpling meat fillings include pork, mutton, beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp which are usually mixed with chopped vegetables. Popular vegetable fillings include cabbage, scallion (spring onions), leek, and Chinese chives. Dumplings are eaten with a soy sauce-based dipping sauce that may include vinegar, garlic, ginger, rice wine, hot sauce, and sesame oil.

Despite that CNY is two months away, here's our version for today's lunch:

Kneaded dough from scratch; just mix flour with water until firm dough is formed.

Fillings include minced pork, spring onion, egg, white cabbage and scallops (seasoned with salt, soy sauce etc).

Wrapped Jiao Zis ready to be boiled. It's important that each jiao zi be wrapped securely, or otherwise the skin may break during boiling. The jiao zis will float on top when cooked.

Before i had the opportunity to snap a good pic of the freshly cooked Jiao Zi, the camera battery went dead. Only managed to do so afterwards, in the early evening when it was about to be dark, and hence this poorest quality.