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.)

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.

dan dan mein (also known as dan dan noodles)

slippery little wheat noodles, steaming hot and spicy broth with a peanutty/sesame-y flavour, topped with ground pork and oftentimes green onions, and cheap, to boot.. what more could i say?



(the best one of the bunch)


try it! eat more! get fat! you deserve a bowl of heaven!