Braised Mushrooms with Fish Maw #ChineseNewYear Dish

The Chinese New Year atmosphere is getting stronger now, especially when you are shopping at the market.  There are so many seasonal foods or ingredients are available now for this celebration.  The one which I won't miss these few years is fried fish maw.    Normally, they are pre-packed with three to four pieces in it and it only can be found around this time near the Chinese New Year. 

Fried fish maw can come out with so many different types of dishes as it's suitable for making soup, braise, stew or even stir-fry.  And today I wish to share with all of you a braised fish maw recipe together with two types of mushrooms - dried Chinese mushrooms and asparagus mushrooms.  This braised mushroom with fish maw is cooked over low heat for almost an hour given you flavorful gravy, especially the fish maw that easily absorbed gravy in it.  

This is a very simple and easy to prepare recipe, am sure everyone can make this dish.  Give a try and you will love it!

For those who prefer to make Fish Maw Soup, please click on the link, which I had shared the recipe before.  Happy Cooking!

Chinese Laughing Sesame Balls (笑口棗) #ChineseNewYear Snack

The Chinese New Year is near the corner.  I am sure most of the Chinese families are busy preparing to welcome this lunar new year.  One of them is "spring cleaning"!  A thorough cleaning of the house is one of the practices and that's the reason why I have to skip of posting last weekend.  Well, as you know a full-time working lady like me will only have time to do cleaning during the weekends and am glad that I had done more than half of it.

As I am more relaxed now, time for me to get back and as the atmosphere for Chinese New Year is stronger, I will share some Chinese traditional recipes with all of you.  The first recipe for this festive is one of the popular Chinese snacks - Laughing Sesame Balls or is pronounced as "Siu How Zhou" in Cantonese.  This is a very simple and easy to make recipe.  

The actual meaning of "Siu How Zhou" is Laughing Dates as these small sesame balls will crack open once they are in the hot oil and the opened crack is looks alike a wide laughing mouth.  This symbolizes laughter and happiness.  

These small wonders are coated with sesame seeds, its crispy on the outside and little soft and chewy inside.  They are very popular snacks or desserts during the Chinese New Year.  It will be a great homemade gift too for visiting!

Steamed Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope you all had a great long holiday.  Normally, after the new year celebration, we will be looking forward to another festive celebration, that is Chinese New Year.  This year the Chinese New Year falls on 8 of February, so left another a month plus for preparation.

The atmosphere of the festive is stronger now, especially when you see those seasonal food displays in the most of the supermarkets.  One of them is Chinese sausage and how could I resist to get some.  It took me a while to think what should I do with these sausages and the answer is here!

I used the sausages as one of filling ingredients in the steamed glutinous rice.  It blends so well with the rest of the ingredients - the chicken meat and mushrooms.  This recipe is more popular to name as "Lo Mai Kai" (Steamed Chicken Glutinous Rice).  As I prefer the whole recipe to be more flavorful, I have made use the lotus leaf to wrap over rice and the fillings.  Lotus leaf is another traditional "tool" of Chinese cooking, which normally use in steaming method.  It can be found in fresh or dried.  As usual, I normally will get whatever is more convenient for me - that's the dried type which I got it through a friend (thank you Susie for the effort).

The whole process of preparation of this recipe took about 5 to 6 hours but is worth the effort on the satisfaction of the result.  Love it so much!  Let's waste no time and see how this delicious recipe process is.