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. 

  

Squash Kaya

It's getting colder and chillier everyday. Signs of winter. Can you believe it, coz i don't; and winter is like, officially starting in 3 weeks time?!?! Came during Spring, then the wet summer hit, now it's autumn and expecting winter. Sometimes i find it ironic. I always compliment how quick time goes by, but never fully comprehend the speed at which it has gone by. Where did all my time go?

It's also the pumpkin season now; winter, butternut squashes you name it. Can get them everywhere for less than AUD1 per kg. I'm a big fan of pumpkin; just like sweet potatoes i can stick with it for many many days. Except that i find it extremely difficult and painful to chop up a large round pumpkin. They give me blisters and red sores which i really dread. :-(

About few weeks ago, we had this butternut squash in our little supply box and after having sat there for a solemn 2 weeks, i decided that it is time it serves its sentence. I made a few porridges out of it, and there were some extras which went handy for a 'squash kaya'.

Just another version of pumpkin kaya cooked with coconut milk, brown sugar and a tint of pandan paste (to make up for the absence of pandan leaves). I find pandan leaves one of the luxury items here in Mel, or perhaps i was too used to picking some free ones from the backyard behind my house. The most expensive pandan i had bought was in SG, from the nearby grocery shop for SGD0.50 a whole bunch. N that was pricey to me. So i decided to leave it out. N it was equally a good decision.



Made a large bottle of squash kaya and it's now half empty! Kaya on toast. Lovely!

Plum and Lime Jam

Another batch of jam ... hehe.

 

I bought a punnet of fresh plums about 1.5 weeks ago with 'jam' in mind, but my hub insisted we shd eat them fresh. I agreed relunctantly, smiling shrewdly knowing deep inside that neither of us will touch them. You see, i don't eat plums when there are apples or pears; n my hub is not a fan of fruits (he only eats when i force him to; then again his choices are merely limited to nectarines, peaches and oranges.) So, like how i had predicted, they sat in my fridge till many many days later n eventually turned 'ripe and soft'. Good good, i told myself, n just yesterday as my hub was away in the city meeting someone, i finally grabbed the opportunity to turn them into ...

 

PLUM n LIME jam!

Nice Dark Deep Red, i tot they were raspberry jam!

My hub came back with the above one single rose (be thankful, LOL!) so in return i cooked him multi-coloured fried bee hoon for dinner!

Light n healthy!

Golden Peach Jam

I spent the whole morning making golden peach jam yesterday, and this is not the first time in Melbourne. The first jam was somehow an accident; we had a box of raspberries which was forgotten n left to rot in the fridge, and by the time i discovered it, there were some green stuff growing di. Not suitable for eating, my hub decided i make jam out of it, and since one box is not really enough (the fruits tend to shrink as they are cooked), i added some ripe nectarines which eventually turned out as raspberry nectarine or as i call it 'rasptarine' jam. Just a small bowl of it. I didn't add much sugar then, so it has to be wiped out asap. I love raspberry jam. If you ask me what is my most fave jam, i will tell you without hessitation that it's raspberry. The scent of cooking it is like a sweet aroma dazzling from a berry plentiful yard. Not even a vineyard can beat this smell, which remains even after the jam is cooked. I think raspberry is the most perfect fruit of all to be made jam. If you have tried cooking one before you wld understand what i meant.

Rasptarine jam;my hub could eat many many toasts at one time with this.

I wanted to go back n grab more raspberries for another batch of jam (larger scale with more sugar as preservative), but alas, the price has gone up at least double and it's definitely not economical to make jam out of these expensive berries when you can get a good 100% fruit jam  from the supermarkets for less than $4, e.g. St Dalfour. Since summer is officially over, other berries have also gone expensive. I saw some 'reduced to clear' bananas and apples, but jams out of them definitely won't taste as good as certain fruits (not to mention, i don't eat bananas apart from cakes). Hence the peaches. Not just normal 'red skinned white flesh' peaches, but golden yellow peaches which are only available in Oz (i have not seen them personally in the UK or China, n my mom in law claimed they are sth new to her). 

i believe total weight for both bags exceeded 2kgs.

I got them for $1 per bag coz most of the fruits were either overripe or ugly. Why use rotten fruits, becoz they taste better n the cooking time is relatively shorter as compared to the good/ not so ripe ones. Besides, it's like wasting if you cook a good looking n ready to eat peach which costs more than double per kg.

Since they are rotten, they must be thoroughly washed n soaked beforehand.

I spent more than an hour cooking 2kgs of peach with 800g of sugar n lemon juice to produce the below result. Of course with hub's assistance. You may wonder why so much sugar; sugar acts like a preservative in this case, without sugar the shelf life of the jam wld be significantly short. Brands like St Dalfour who claim their jams are sugar free use grape syrup or maybe other preservative to prolong the shelf life. To me, homemade jams are better even with the extensive amt of sugar, becos the ingredients are purely the fruits, sugar n lemon juice. No gelatine, no cornstarch, no additives but only these three ingredients. Not to mention, cheaper. For a total $4.60, i made abt nearly 1kg of jam that can last us for many mths.

Beautiful colour? I used raw caster sugar instead of normal white sugar.

It is very important that glass jars which are recycled to store jam be sterilised properly. The steps are fairly simple: boil jars in a deep saucepan and heat/dry in a preheated oven at 200oC. Jams must be hot filled directly into these dried jars, n lids fastened without being left to cool so that the trapped hot air can secure the closure n prevent outside air from entering. This way the jams don't have to be refrigerated but only upon opening n consumption.

 



I am thinking of making mixed berries jam end of the year i.e. when the next summer comes. At the moment, we have enough supply to last till then.

P/s:  i am at the moment, considering n applying my master of eng in Mel Uni, and wld appreciate your prayer on this. Has been my long wish to do a postgrad, n i believe this may be the right time considering the fact that upon working or having kids will reduce the possibility of me pursuing one in the near future.

Strawberries, strawberries.

I'm putting on weight! :-{. Gained extra 1.5kgs from the pure glutton CNY week. :-P. And Hubby complained i can't stop eating. :-P :-{. Seems like i'm running out of self control, and the only problem is that when i gain, my face pops like a basketball stuck in a still 'skinny twig' body, just like this:

* Sigh* Sigh*. Now you know where that extra 1.5kgs go.

Strawberries had been flooding our house for the past week, courtesy of Hub's aunts. BIG juicy ones. Initially thought of 'preserving' some for my own aunt to smuggle back to M'sia, but our plan backfailed when mom in law found most of them squiggy soft yesterday. Instead of benefiting the black bin, i decided to cook some good jam out of the soft over-ripen strawberries (note the word over ripen, not spoiled).

I didn't blend the fruits to leave some bits in the jam, otherwise it would look too commercial instead of homemade. Besides i love my jam to be more 'coarse' in texture with bits and pieces everywhere, just like crunchy peanut butter as fine taste is like eating jellies to me. (n save me the trouble of washing the blender)

This is gonna be on our toasts for the next couple of days!

Pineapple Paste

These two days had been pretty hard. Hubby's maternal grandpa passed away all of a sudden, and the atmosphere at home was filled with sadness and chills. Grandpa is 88 years old, and had been staying with the family ever since Hubby was only 1 year old. Having no paternal granddad since young, it is explainable why Hubby has explicit close ties with this grandpa and his gone must have been pretty hard on him. Nevertheless, i'm proud that he remained strong so that he could bring comfort and consolation to mom in law, not only that, but taking care and making sure i'm ok at all times.

Just yesterday, i managed to steal a bit of time to make pineapple paste in the effort to save this pineapple from rottening. Hubby bought this for me about two weeks ago, when we were deciding which pineapple is best for the cabbage cake, and in the end, we came back with both the fresh and canned ones.

The super ripe pineapple smelling very pineapplish

This time, the paste was still a bit wet, despite being cooked for nearly an hour which was due to the ripeness of the pineapple having more juice. I added very little sugar and some lemon juice so as to bring out the sourish taste. Some recipes call for spices like cardamom and cinnamon, but since they are not my tastebud, i couldn't be bothered to add any of them.

Will look for some time to make pineapple tarts before i fly back to KK.