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.

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.)

Poutine central: MA-a-am-M Bolduc

When you have overseas visitors who hear of this Quebec mangled food phenomenon called "poutine" and aren't completely revolted by it enough to try one, you gladly humour them.

In my case, my Dutch visitor, Lin heard through the grapevine that was a magical French-Canadian dish called "poutine" that was the cause of all wars in this world,

So I took her to one of Montreal's best poutine destinations to let her find out for herself: Ma-am-m Bolduc.

[A most memorable plate of poutine: Ma-a-am-m Bolduc's vintage original.]

Lin adhered to the standard French-Canadian instructions for eating poutine: grab a fork and dig in. Ma-am-M Bolduc's fantastic savoury sauce and generous dosage of squeaky cheese complement the homestyle fries to a tee (check out their menu for the full list of poutine varieties).

As the Dutch say in Quebec, Het regnet poutine, meaning, "the world would be a worse off place without deep fryers".

As with all that is deep fried, you need a tasty chaser. My lovely friend chose to wash it all down with locally-made spruce beer.

[Lin about to try spruce beer for the first time. She liked it so much, she inhaled it.]

Contrary to urban myth, spruce beer (bière d'epinette) is a refreshing, non-alcoholic nectar of the gods, that tastes like camping, and increases virility all while helping you with your math homework.

[Doesn't look like much but this bottle of spruce beer will change your life for the better!]

(If you're enterprising, you can make your own spruce beer, or hurt yourself trying.)

Poutine initiation was a success! Lin has passed level 1 of Quebec foodstuffs and is ready to move onto level 2: sugar shacks.

(Lin: BTW, thanks for the picolientjes!)

Ma-am-M Bolduc
4351-4355 de Lorimier
www.maammbolduc.com

Maple syrup makes the world go 'round

The general rule is, when you go sugar shacking, i.e. maple syrup hunting, you need to like maple syrup. You need to like maple syrup because you will drench everything in this sweet Canadian liquid gold*.

[Just looking at the bowl of oreilles de crisse is clogging my arteries.]

Acériculture (I don't think there actually is an English word for it) is bigass industry in Quebec. And this fact, we celebrate by dangerously coming close to inducing adult onset diabetes with the all-you-can-eat formula at our beloved cabanes à sucre.


[A bucket collecting maple sap from a tap. Pretty interesting, especially because it resembles a bucket collecting water but is not!]

Typical sugar shack fare includes maple syrup with a side of baked beans, fluffy omelette, ham, bacon, cretons, sausage, pancakes, followed by homemade doughnuts, and/or maple sugar pie or just plain sugar pie with maple syrup juice.


[Aformentioned homemade doughnuts and maple sugar tartlets.]

(Er, I know my post is much too late in the season for anyone who wants to experience this diabetes-invoking* activity (especially cause it's already la Fête de la St-Jean), but you can make these deep fried pancakes (puffed doughnuts) yourself at home. Recipe below...)


Deep fried pancakes (crêpes frites), AKA beignes soufflées 

2.5 to 3 cups (600 to 750ml) flour
1/2 tsp (2ml) salt
2 to 3 Tbs (30 to 45ml) baking powder
2 Tbs (30ml) sugar
3 Tbs (45ml) butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 to 1.5 cup (250 to 325ml) milk or water (room temperature)
1/4 tsp (1ml) vanilla (optional but delicious)
oil for frying

1. Make room in stomach.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. 
3. In another bowl, mix together the milk or water, melted butter, and sugar. 
4. Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture. Whisk this batter using a whisk until your hands feel like jelly, which should take anywhere between 15 seconds (wimps) to 2 minutes (contenders).
5. Heat oil to about 150C (300F) in a vessel large with sufficient room so that doughnuts can float. 
6. Drop the dough into the oil in large dollops, either with a large spoon or some piping mechanism and fry until they float and are golden. Remove from oil onto a dish lined with absorbent paper towels.
7. Repeat the frying method (step 6.) for the remainder of the batter.
8. Once cooled, coat or sprinkle with icing sugar, or soak in maple syrup.

TIP: For larger yield, make smaller dollops and/or hide them  from gluttonous siblings.

I'm not sure why but most of mine turned out shaped like stomachs -- maybe because they know precisely where they're heading!

Bonne St-Jean!!

*YES I know maple syrup is also manufactured in parts of the US. But to us, it's as Canadian as BIXI, and Kiefer Sutherland.

**If required, wear elastic waistband pants.

Little Britain in Montreal*

(*Apologies, but sadly there is no Matt Lucas or David Williams here.)

The next time your smuggled deep-fried fish** gets confiscated at airport customs from your luggage on your way home from the UK because you couldn't resist sharing the lovely flakes of fish with your friends and family here back home, great news! You can take a deliciously deep-fried lump of fish and crispy chips home from right here, in Old Montreal!


[Haddock in maple syrup batter to the left; cod in Burgundy Lion batter to the right. Oh yes.]

Tucked away at the edge of Old Montreal, in the former McGill Hog Dog diner spot, Brit & Chips is Montreal's answer to the staple UK take-away food, complete with artery-clogging tartar sauce and the lemon wedge designed to fit entirely in your mouth.

[Good-looking take-away boxes and the contents about to get eaten! (cw from the top: haddock, cod and salmon).]

Run, don't walk, down to this chippy if you're in the hood. Oh and maybe shell out a measly $11 bucks for some fish and chips while you're there!

Brit & Chips
433 Rue Mcgill
www.britandchips.com

** Thanks to the peeps at the Darkside HK, I have been enlightened to this "delicacy" of a fried fish practice in some part of China that will cause me to have nightmares for years to come. As if dreaming about talking sandwiches wasn't already disturbing enough!

try this: ox-tongue (minus the tongue)

sometimes i wonder whether or not it is out of sheer spite that the chinese create ridiculous and cryptic names for dishes and foods to turn them off from eating them.

one of my favourites in that category is the puffy, slightly chewy, slightly sweet and fun-to-eat ovular deep-fried treats called ox-tongue pastries, or 牛脷酥 (in cantonese, gnau-lei so).


[it's the one on the right! one in the back is a sesame ball and one in the foreground, i forget but it wasn't as tasty as the oxtongue.] 

there's no ox nor any ox-tongue in it, perfect for vegetarian/pretendatarian/omnivores alike! its namesake stems from its shape which resembles the tongues of our bovine friend (pretty ugly if you ask me).

often eaten to complement congee or with just fresh soy milk, these and other types of chinese pastries are often found in fast-foody type, street food carts, or dim sum houses (though finding them in the latter is kind of rare, at least in north america, but you might luck out).

i guarantee some smiles once you bite into one (hopefully not fake ones)!