KAMPUNGBOYCITYGAL A MALAYSIAN FOOD & TRAVEL BLOG

One of the most important thing about Chinese New Year is the food, of course it has to come after your family, friends and companions. Chinese New Year is a chance where people enjoy huge feasts, socialize and pig out! I tend to forget about my weight watch or work out during the period and I’ll carry with me the flabby meat until Chap Goh Meh.

Chinese New Year is also known for its snacks. Usually we will serve our guests with little snacks keep inside a container. This year, mum decided to make her own snacks so I helped out a bit.

Hornet’s Nest are my favourite and it is very addictive. It is crispy with a hint of sweetness. Sesame seeds are added into the batter to make it aromatic. The recipe and methods for both sweet and savoury version are available in FoodCrazee’s blog.

Arrowhead is a kind of swamp vegetable and also cousin to water chesnut or lotus root. My mum used to steam sliced arrowheads and garlic with chinese sausages (lap cheong). It makes a good New Year dish on the dining table. Other than that arrowhead makes a good snack after some deep frying.Peel off the skin and sliced it thinly. Put the sliced arrowhead into hot oil slices by slices. Drain the crisps as soon as it turn golden brown or else it will taste bitter. Bear in mind that the arrowhead slices has to be thin or else it would abosb oil. Sprinkle the crisps with some salt. Warning: It is extremely addictive!! One can never get enough of it!!

Pasar malam and shops in Ipoh are bursting with these crispy filamen crabstick. It is very easy to be duplicated at home, wonder why they can sell it for RM 12 for each red capped plastic container? First cut the filamen crabstick into half.

The filamen crabstick can be easily teared into stripes like this. Deep fried the thin slices until it turned golden brown. No seasoning is required because the slices taste sweet and salty at the same time. It makes a great TV snack!

From left: Crispy filamen crabstick, Chicken floss spring roll (no pic was taken on the making), Arrowhead Crisps.

Pai Tee, a Nyonya delicacy is a popular treat in my family. The children will usually bugged my mum for making it. It requires a lot of patience because the making of the cases is tedious and so mum will make it a special treat on certain occasions such as the annual CHINs’ gathering.

First, whisk the batter with hand until it becomes smooth. Then the iron mould is heated in oil, then dipped carefully in batter and then back into the oil again.As the batter gets cooked the edges of the batter will flaired out. Carefully use a spoon to slide the cases out of the mold. Fried it for a few seconds until it turned golden brown. The cases will look like a blossoming flowers, wonderful!

Not to forget the Jeu Hu Char with lots of dry cuttlefish slices for flavouring! Omit sugar if possible as the bangkuang will give the dish a natural hint of sweetness.

We spent the whole morning helping mum with the whisking and frying to get a large batch like this! It’s all about your experience and be ready to learn from mistakes. Some cases cracked and some were haywirely out of shape. Eventually we become familiar with the task as time passed, all the cases turned out to be perfect and none was abandoned.

Fill the ultra-thin crispy top hats with one scoopful of Jeu Hu Char, put one in your mouth and whole ensemble disintegrates, filling your mouth with intense sweet flavours. The Pai Tee was heavenly!P/s: My mum is a spontaneous cook without recipes and I couldn’t seems to search for any online recipes, refer to Rasa Malaysia’s site for some excellent pictures and simple to follow recipes on Pai Tee.

After reading Glutton Rabbit and Just Heavenly post on Spring Roll, I decided to make my own too. So eventually my recipe will be a combination of theirs.

Ingredients (to make 20)
1 large sengkuang – thinly sliced
2 carrots – thinly slices
1 clove of garlic – finely chopped
40 sheets spring roll wrappers
3 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
Salt and sugar to taste

1. Heat some oil and fry the garlic till fragrant.
2. Pour in the sengkuang, carrot, soy sauce and oyster sauce and saute till it turned soft.
3. Add salt and sugar to taste.
4. Wrap the vegetables with the spring roll wrappers. I used two sheets for each popiah to get extra crunchiness. Tips from Glutton Rabbit.
5. Use egg white to seal the wrappers.
6. Deep fried it and it’s ready to served. Best served with Thai Chilli Sauce.

P/S It would be perfect will some dried shrimps and minced meat.

My housemates love it..Carnivorous Kampungboy loves it even more..And mum would be happy to hear that! It’s quite a lot of work even though the ingredients are simple.