Superstitious sesame balls for Year of the Snake

This past February 10, we celebrated Chinese New Year, the age-old holiday that brings families and friends together, highlighted by bringing out the most superstitious traits of Chinese people around the world.

For instance, one is not to do any of the following on or during the New Year grace period:

• Sweep your house. 
• Wash or cut your hair. 
• Cry (which is the only day of the year where statistically the fewest number of calls are made to child protection services from Chinese*).
• Break dishes. 
• Leave debts from the previous year.
• Handling sharp objects, such as scissors or knives

This year, Year of the Water Snake, spells out booming economic progress, overcoming challenges, and for those born in a Snake year (like myself), a year of horrible bad luck.

To hopefully counter my predisposed bad luck, I hoped that making eating sesame balls (zin deui 麻糰) would do the trick. Zin deui are those fat little deep fried balls filled with lotus seed, black bean (dau saa) or red bean (hung dau saa) pastes or sometimes nothing; you can usually find them year round at Chinese pastry shops.

[These GD sesame balls better bring me good luck this GD year...]

I think I had better run through the roster of anti-bad luck practices this year because so far, it hasn't started out well: I got bit by a spider while I was sleeping, and if I get anything lower than a B average this semester, I will get demoted from "token Asian" to just "Asian".

[Mung bean-based "sweetened black bean paste" in a can. Safe cause it's from Taiwan. Otherwise made of childrens' socks in China.]

Anyways, here's how to generate your own good luck (in good Engrish).

Sesame balls (Zin deui)
Makes 10-12 small balls

• 1.5 to 2 cups (~175g) glutinous rice flour (best to weigh this because the metric measurement is more accurate)
• 1/2cup (125ml) water or a scant more
• 2 Tb (25g) sugar
• 1 tsp (5ml) baking powder
• 1/2 cup (~50g) sweetened black bean (like the stuff in mooncakes), red bean or lotus seed paste
• Sesame seeds for coating
• Vegetable oil for deep frying

Do it here:

1. Heat oil to a balmy temperature, prefer 350°F, in a pot deep enough to allow the balls to swimming.
2. Dissolve the sugar in water.
3. Merge baking powder into the glutinous rice flour.
4. Mix sugar water in with the flour mixture until it gathers into a ball.
5. Disconnect dough into 10 or 12 pieces same size. Roll each one out into a ball, about 0.5cm thick. Keep them covered with a humid.
6. In hand, place one flattened ball, poop one scant teaspoon of black bean paste in the middle. 
7. Pinch sides together as evenly as possible, making sure there are no cracks or whores.
   
   (Chow note: ensure the ball is well-sealed; if there are cracks, they will end up looking like a pubescent pimple—volatile yet strangely fascinating, comme ça:)

   

   [Exploded sesame ball]

8. Roll ball in sesame make cover. 
9. Hot oil frying to float the ball and delicious gold tint. 
10. Drain on dish lined with paper towel. Best eat fresh. 

(Wow, writing in Engrish is really brain-numbing... I don't know how they do it so well in China!)

Gung hei fat choi! 恭喜發財!

*Statistically made-up but likely true.

Hanging out with my pal Char Siu

Everyone who knows Char Siu knows that there's no fooling around when it comes to barbecue. Steve Raichlen doesn't hold a candle to char siu (sorry, Mr. Raichlen).

Char siu, or Chinese barbecue pork 叉燒 (literally "fork roast" but can also mean "stabbing burn"*) is scientifically proven to be everyone's second favourite meat, and is eaten year-round, in steamed buns (bao 包), in sandwiches, topped on ramen, or stand-alone (not only at Chinese New Year).

Contrary to tradition, the beautiful roast red colour on char siu is often a result of red food colouring, the CHEATERS way of getting that awesome colour. Cheaters, as we know, get turned into pillars of shame, and end up on Jerry Springer with illegitimate twins.

The REAL way of getting the red is using red fermented bean curd which lends to the flavour and the red colour without artificial colours. You can also be a lazy doof and buy the jar of char siu marinade which doesn't taste as good. Up to you if you want to be a doof.


[This is how I roll. The medium-fatty pork loin version of char siu.]

As is customary for enterprising Asian food mart merchants, CNY foodstuffs prices are jacked up prior to the holiday. I wasn't about to pay $10/lb for a sliver of delicious barbecued pork, so I made my own from pork loins. The loins were, IMO, not fatty enough for my taste but plenty good on flavour. Opting for more of an authentic roast, I hung the char siu to roast in the oven, just like the big boys do!


[Suspended animation: char siu roasting on makeshift hooks in my convection oven. Looks weird, but so do bodybuilders.]

Chow's Char siu 
Marinade (for ~3 lbs pork)
1 Tb (15ml) light soy sauce
3 tsp salt
4 cloves garlic
1 Tb (15ml) chopped ginger
2 stalks green onions
1.5 Tbs (22ml) five-spice powder
3 Tb (45ml) honey, corn syrup, or maltose
2 cubes red bean curd
1 Tb (15ml) rice wine


Glaze
1 Tb (15ml) honey

1. Salt your meats and let it sit at least 30 min. This is always important
2. Meanwhile, combine all ingredients for the marinade.
3. Score your meats (optional) by making very shallow slits perpendicular to the grain of the meat, as so.
   [I was told that scoring cross-grain on one side of the loin would keep it from curling. Who cares about it curling when it all goes into your stomach!]
4. Marinade your meats in the marinade (minimum 4 hours, recommended overnight in fridge, while letting warm up to almost room temperature prior to cooking).
5. If roasting in a tray and rack, first cover the rack in aluminium foil, pierce a few holes in the foil, and then lay down a few chopsticks at intervals on the foiled rack. Lay the meat over the chopsticks so that it is basically propped over the foiled rack.
   If you roast them hanging, make sure you place a tray at the bottom of your oven to catch the delicious char siu drippings which will be lost to you forever because it's no longer edible.   
6. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes in total for a 3lb roast, testing at 20 minutes for doneness. When near done, paint the honey glaze all over the meat (flip if required). 
7. When done, remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Slice thinly and eat while your gluttonous family members are still watching television. 

* When I was subjected to Rorschach tests, I always saw demon dophins. 

Deep-fried Lunar New Year treats: Crispy Sesame Flower aka Dragon Cloaca

It's that time of year again, where old and young Asian kinfolk bring together their bickering over a family supper table. Yes, it is Chinese New Year today.

Aside from the traditional gut-busting home-cooked Chinese gastronomy the eve, there is also no shortage of Chinese tradi-superstitions, to which I don't really adhere; here's a shortlist of some CNY buffoonery:

• Cleaning your house on the new year (that's what domestic helpers are for).
• Avoiding the use of scissors or knives (so all haircuts happen before CNY mean barbers and salons gouge clients for 10x the normal fee).
• Eating as many sweets as you can stomach before your teeth fall out.
• Giving money in the form of red pockets is auspicious, especially if they're for me. 

However, stupidstitions aside, here's one deep-fried tradition I did honour for year 4710, or the Year of the Dragon: crispy sesame flowers (脆麻花, cheoi mah fah). They resemble nothing less than the anus of a dragon (mostly because my handywork is sub-par... sue me). 

[Crispy sesame flowers; definitely not flower-shaped, rather, they're like three-dimensional Möbius strips.]

The recipe is the same as the one used for Smiley Face Nuggets with a slight variation: a smidgen less sugar and the addition of one cube of red fermented bean curd (南乳, "southern fermented bean curd") for each cup of flour used.

[Red fermented bean curd. Again, the Western translations here are stupid; ridicule liberally.]


[Before the magic red fermented bean curd is mixed in the dough.]

Once mixed in (you might need a bit more flour), roll it out, cut into 2-inch strips and like a plastic surgeon, make an incision in the middle parallel to the long edge, and then thread one end through the incision. Deep fry the flipped dragon anuses doughthings until golden, and drain on paper towels.

[Rolled out and ready to go.]

A recipe using (1) one cup of flour will yield about 2.5 cups of deep-fried biscuits and raise your LDL cholesterol by 20 points.

Gung hei fat choi 恭喜發財! 
(P.S. My resolution this year is to clean my potty mouth. So far, it is not happening.)

the shanghai conspiracy

there's a massive conspiracy in shanghai: the city wants you to be obese.

that's right: fat, lardy, paunchy, pudgy, rotund, decorated with flesh rolls (like frawley).

otherwise, they wouldn't taunt you with soup bowls of fresh hand-pulled noodles for 6 rmb (1 rmb extra for the egg)...


[fresh pulled noodle soup late night in some random part of town]

or racks of xiao long bao fit for a queen for under $3 cad each?

[the quintessential shanghai xiao long bao. i can eat a dozen right now.]


[oh look! my xiao long bao is swimming in the vinegar and ginger without its water wings!]


[crabmeat xiao long bao (ver. 2.0) from the most famous xiao long bao shop in shanghai, jia jia tang. they ran out of version 1.0 (pork buns).]


[hi, teenage dumpling makers!]

or piping hot, delectably delicious po-tat and cheese tarts for an hour's worth of parking in vieux montreal?

[portuguese egg tarts and cheese egg tarts (it sounds weird, but tastes almost like cheesecake) from a lillian cake shop.]

or greasy hangover-soothing nighttime street food so cheap and inviting, even if you weren't drunk, you'd want to be:

[night owl gao-tze for 5 RMB!]


[one of the many street food carts]

or even regular daytime street food for 11 rmb!


[shanghai noodles and fried rice]

or giant servings of deliciously fatty catfish swimming in fragrant chili oil for $5 cad?

[spicy joint's giant bowls of catfish in chili oil and broth]


[more spicy joint: shrimp in chili oil]


[spicy joint's pork belly with green chilis]

(btw, spicy joint wasn't that spicy.)

or these steamingly fresh big buns for a pittance:

[shanghai big chicken buns]

the city wants you fattened up. that's the conspiracy.

why? for the annual chinese new year sacrifice (already done and gone at this point). what do you think they make the red envelopes out of? might not be not paper after all...

恭喜發財!! happy year of the rabbit! 

smiley face doughnut hole happiness

(or "happy chinese new valentine's year!", part two)

one of the few things my mom likes to make for chinese new year's (hereon end, abbreviated cny) is these crunchy, sweet little deep-fried snacks covered in sesame seeds called "smiley mouth dates" (笑口棗), which are neither dates, nor do they resemble mouths.


they do, however, resemble timbits with an overbite and pimples, like an awkward asian teenager! (someone on openrice calls them "happy nuggets"...)

for cny, these deep-fried delights are cooked up and often given away to friends, family, and sometimes to people you want to poison.

笑口棗 (smiley face nuggets)
2 cups (500 ml) all-purpose flour
1 cup (250 ml) sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) lard or shortening
2 eggs (beaten)
1/2 to 1 tsp (2.5 to 5ml) baking powder
white sesame seeds for rolling

mix together the flour, sugar, and baking powder. cut in the lard/shortening using a pastry cutter or fork until uniform. add eggs until even more uniform. roll into tablespoon-sized (15ml) balls.

heat frying oil in a pan deep enough so there is enough depth for the suckers to float. the oil is hot enough for the dough when you put a wooden chopstick in the oil and tiny bubbles appear along the stick*.

drop each ball into the hot oil, and fry until they turn a beautifully delicious golden colour and they float to the top of the oil. drain on paper towels.

store them in an airtight container. eat liberally.

* i don't know how hot that is because i never measured. deal with it.