BBQ Bak Kwa (Chinese Pork Jerky) 【猪肉干/肉脯】

Bak Kwa, while growing up is something we get to enjoy only during Chinese New Year in Malaysia. I used to queue up for hours at Petaling street "Ngo Lei Ya" just to get a couple of packets of this BBQ meat...

This may sound like a crazy thing now, but the wait makes the BBQ meat all the more precious, so is the memory of celebrating Chinese New Year with families.

肉干是在马来西亚的时候过节必定要有节庆美食。记得有一年农历新年前，我到茨场街的“我来也”肉干行排队买肉干，居然排了三个小时，马来西亚人对肉干的喜爱程度，可见一斑。

这是我用自制的红糟制作的猪肉干， 颜色漂亮而且味道特别好，根本不需要色素哦！

Traditional Chinese New Year Cake/Nian Gao 【传统年糕制作】

My childhood was spent mostly in a small town in southern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The "festive" atmosphere in small towns during and before Chinese New Year are so much stronger in comparison to cities.

The elderly in families will start making types of New Year cakes/Kuehs weeks before Chinese New Year. This Nian Gao/Sticky rice cake is one of them.

My grandma was the one that makes this cake for everyone in the family, she will stay up all night to watch the fire. Every step of making this cake is manual and rigorous.

Nian Gao is normally used for prayers in Chinese New Year, a well steamed Nian Gao can be stored for months without being refrigerated.

Even though there are many short cut recipes of Nian Gao circulating around the net nowadays.

I still find it imperative to preserve the traditional way of making it.

Though I can't stone grind my glutinous rice and steam cook using firewoods, I do manage to replicate the process as closely to the origin as I can with the aids of blender and slow cooker.

I have to say that I cannot be more pleased with the result!

Here I am, together with my family heritage -- Nian Gao, wishing everybody a prosperous and healthy year of Monkey!

年糕的主要功能是年除夕时祭祖和祭神时用的，一般会在年前好几周就提前制作好，制作的工序严谨繁琐，从铺垫器具，泡糯米，磨米浆，脱水，拌糖到蒸制全都需要人工制作，处理好入蒸笼之后还要在后院用大大的蒸笼蒸上12-16个小时，蒸年糕的过程需要有人不断的添材火，加热水，所以每年蒸年糕的时候，我阿嬤就会有两晚都没法睡觉，实在是一个爱意满满的糕点哦！现在虽然有了很多简易的年糕方子，但我仍觉得，阿嬤亲手做出来的糯米年糕才是最Q弹，最甜糯好吃的！

古法制作的年糕不容易变质，即使在没有冰箱的年代，年糕在室温下都能收藏半年，甚至一年之久。一般都是年后才会把年糕取来切块蒸软或裹上面糊炸了吃。

人在国外我没有条件石磨米浆和材火蒸煮，但在慢炖锅和电动搅拌机的协助下，相当大程度地复制了阿嬤制作的年糕味道。

带着我家乡的传统年糕，向私房的姐姐妹妹们祝贺，希望大家在新的一年里阖家安康，欢乐无限。

【闽南粕丸】Hokkien Pok Nyee （Minnan Style Meatballs）

小时候过年的前几天家里的大人们都会忙着制作各种不同的美食，古早味的年菜耗时又耗工，所以大家都忙得不亦乐乎。这款闽南肉丸子是其中一款我家祭祖必定有的菜，所以制作过程还历历在目。

我还记得，外婆和长辈们在大大的木砧板上把猪腿肉切细丁，然后用两把大刀，双手握紧均匀地把肉剁成肉末。因为制作的量比较大，剁肉的过程时间很长，需要好几个大人轮流着剁。剁肉的同时其他人会在边上忙着剥蒜剥红葱头，然后加入肉里一起剁碎。

剁好的肉末调好味之后，大人们就会把手洗干净，沾湿手后开始抛打肉丸，之所以说是抛打而不是搓肉丸，是因为这个肉丸子是取一小勺的肉末在手掌上左右手相互抛打而成的，这样抛打出来的丸子结实，有嚼劲，味道更好。

炸好的丸子直接就是一道很好吃的年菜，剩下的可以加上其他蔬菜烹制成各式美食，是一个很好配搭的食材。

When I was young, Chinese New Year preparation is a very lengthy and tedious process. The elderly in the family will have to start weeks ahead to make ingredients for cooking for the reunion dinner.

Bak Nyee/Meatball is one of the tedious ones, it requires mincing pork butt with a butcher knife on a huge chopping board slowly before adding other ingredients. A few people will have to work together to take turns to make sure the pork was well minced. When one works on mincing the meat, others will chip in to peel garlics and shallots, which will later be added to the pork to be minced together.

The minced pork will then be seasoned with spices and salt, together with some crushed soda crackers (for crunchiness). The seasoned meat will be made into small balls and being thrown with force between two palms, just like how you would with playing throwing of balls. Doing this for around 10 times will result in a very round and solid meatball, which is chewy in texture.

The meatball is a very good dish on its own after frying, the leftover could be make into different kind of dishes too.

Spring roll (Poh Piah)

The traditional East Asian calendars divide a year into 24 solar terms (節氣). Lìchūn (立春) literally: "start of spring") is the 1st solar term.

Traditionally we will eat something that grow in spring in the day Lichun falls. Typically stirred fried vegetables wrapped in a steamed sheet made from wheat flour, it is thus called "Spring Roll". Spring rolls could be eaten fresh or fried.

Mum used to buy fresh spring roll sheet from a local lady, with lots of different kind of vegetables, fried eggs, and this Mang Guang Char.

All the kiddos in the house were allowed to wrap our own spring rolls, that was more fun than eating it. My brother will stuffed his rolls with so much fillings that it could hardly roll up!

It was very fond memories and since it is Lichun today, I am making some spring rolls for the families to upkeep the tradition.

Mang Guang Char（Stir Fry Shredded Jicama) 【沙葛小炒】

Jicama is a very common fruit/vegetable in Malaysia, it could be eaten raw as fruit or cooked into different type of dishes. This Mang Guang Char is one of them, we eat it as dishes to go with rice or congee.

It is a very common vegetables to be wrapped in spring roll/Popiah, it can also be used as filling of steamed bun/pau.

沙葛也叫做沙瓜，味道鲜甜、脆嫩多汁，生食可当水果，煮熟也别有风味。

今天介绍的这个沙葛小炒是马来西亚一个很家常的做法，小贩中心卖春卷的小摊子会在电锅里熬上一大锅沙葛，然后加上水煮豆芽、炒鸡蛋、豆腐碎、花生碎、辣椒酱和甜酱，裹在自家做的春卷皮上，直接吃，也可油炸了吃。 平常家里也可以做这个沙葛小炒作为包子的内馅，也很好吃哦！

Gingko Barley Soy Skin Sweet Soup

It suddenly got very cold this week here in the east coast of USA with more than 10 inches of snow. The air became very dry and cold, my lips crack and nose dried up, it's about time to make something that could help fight cold and dryness!

I saw the fresh bean curd skin and fresh Gingko at the Chinese supermarket today, it is perfect to make this sweet soup good to moist the skin and nourish the body!

How to make Phulka/Chapati & Puri (Video)

Phulkas (also known as Roti or Chapati in some regions in India) is a thin puffed flat bread made with whole wheat flour (Atta). It is a daily staple food for many people in India, especially the northern regions.

Rotis are traditionally cooked on tava (A flat iron skillet) and later place over direct flame to quickly puff it up.

Growing up as a Chinese girl in Malaysia, I have never come across any homemade bread until much later in my teenage let alone preparing it.

I started preparing homemade rotis when we moved to USA after marriage, I had to learn from scratch, took me months to learn how to knead the dough with right texture, another few more months to learn how to roll a somewhat presentable round rotis. My husband N had to eat so many failed attempts before it gets better.

I can now say that I make pretty good rotis and made a short video on it. It does gets better with practise, that is for sure.

Ngoh Heang/ Lorbak

This meat roll in bean curd skin is a common Chinese New Year dish back home. There will be housewives making it at home and sell in advance weeks before chinese New Year, mom will buy from her friends and keep it in the freezer.

We will thaw a few of this rolls and fry it before reunion dinner, it takes a very short time to turn it into another good looking and delicious reunion dinner dish!