Foodies

What is Chinese New Year without the tastilicious traditional must-haves? Having neighbours that celebrate the Chinese New Year, we receive lot of cookies and oranges from them..(yes i have great neighbours). man I am sure going to grow horizontally wider by next week! Here are some traditional treats that are always present during the New Year:

Love Letters

I love love letters! They're my fav! In Malay it is called Kuih Kapit. It's a thin crispy and crunchy cookie. It is made of flour,sugar, eggs and coconut milk.

Steamed Glutinous Rice Cake

Yikes the English name for it is a mouthful! We call it Kuih Bakul (Literally means Basket Savoury Cake- in my translation). I don't really know how to eat this, except when it's cut and fried together with yam and sweet potato.. it's really gooey and sticky and sickenningly sweet. Has Diabetes written all over it. Just the way I like it. hah!
It's made out of steamed glutinous rice cake that is mixed with brown sugar and water. I don't really know the significance of this traditional sweets till I googled it. Apparantly eating this "symbolizes a sweet life ahead and family togetherness". You an read further from this site: Nian Gao

I remember when I was young my mother used to tell me a story about the Kitchen God that the Chinese belive in. Living. Anyways the story goes like this: Before CNY, the Kitchen God goes his household rounds and goes back to Heaven to report on every house. The glutinuos rice is given as a prayer offering for the Kitchhen God. Once he consume it, it's sticky and sweet - so he cannot open his mouth and report anything bad to the Gods! I just checked online and found a similar story about it in another person's blog: Have You Eaten

We got 2 basketful of oranges from our neighbours this year!

Mmmm citrussy..

More info on these delights:
1. Love Letters
2. Nian Gao's history
3. Nian Gao

Comments

Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
28/1/09 06:50
Anonymous said…
EWW... =P Buen provecho I guess... although I would like some orange juice without the citrus acid (messes up the skin).

Okay okay... So the cookies look kinda good... but the rice thingy... bleh! ^_^ Teehee...
28/1/09 06:52
KM said…
kapit. hihihihihi

ooh.. you are definitely making my mouth water for those foodies. :( Though I don't eat 'nian gao' much even in my younger years.
28/1/09 15:00
Mariposa said…
Xin: yeah i don't reqally know how to eat the rice thingy either..unless it's fried with some other stuff.. it tastes like caramel..lol

KM: YAH KAPIT hahahaha I wish i could post more cookies up, like the peanut ones and the jam tarts..but it got eaten up hahaha
28/1/09 19:35
tr3nta said…
nice exotic stuff!!!!
29/1/09 01:48
adelynne said…
woi, i didnt any of those things these year... SAD! :( except the limau.
31/1/09 00:03
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