I am always on the lookout for simple and yummy meatless recipe every week. This week’s meatless day dish is inspired by Christine’s Stewed Beancurd Puffs with Daikon & Carrot. It fits the bill and it has been awhile since we have cooked with daikon or also known as white radish. Daikon has a nice subtle sweet but clean taste and it takes on flavour really well. I love it chunky in soups or julienne raw and served in salads.
After a trip to Footscray market, I decided to ditch the tofu puffs and got Enoki mushroom, baby corns and fresh shitake mushrooms. This dish is a collaboration of myself and Mister. I prepped the ingredients, he cooked and I took the photos. And I have to say it turned out pretty good.
I need to take a break from all the feasting after this hectic 2 weeks of eating and drinking. It all started a couple of weeks before Chinese New Year where we spent my weekends making pineapple tarts, cashew nut cookies and kuih bangkit. And I made heart-shaped ones because the first day of Chinese New Year falls on Valentine’s Day as well. So more love around for everyone!
A small group of us decided to celebrate both eve and first day of Chinese New Year together. And our place were opened to them. On the eve, we opted to have steamboat. As usual, I volunteered to shop and make 2 types of broth for the evening. The night before was the 30th birthday of 2 friends. Mister and I were shopping totally hungover. We were not a pretty sight. But the party must go on and so we dragged our sorry self to the markets.
Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days. There is almost a different event for each day of celebration. Vegetarian meals are eaten on some days and certain Gods need to be prayed to on others. The seventh day is the birthday of all human beings. In the past, farmers in the villages will gather and make a almost vegetarian dish that consists of a green soup and seven different types of vegetables to celebrate the occasion. So I thought for this week’s challenge, it will be a good idea to introduce to this really amazing peasant dish that was prepared and cooked by a friend’s mum.
These days many Chinese dialect groups will celebrate by having yeesheng. But the Hakka still have the tradition of having luicha for this occasion instead. The soup is made up of mainly basil, coriander, mint, peanuts, sesame seeds, dried anchovies (ikan bilis) and tea leaves. They are cooked, blended together and then placed in the middle of the table.
It was such a lovely sunny day. We really wanted to be outside enjoying the sun but alas Chinese New Year was in a week and a lot more baking needs to be done. I really wanted to have more festive vibes this year. Not being back to Asia for Chinese New Year for more than a decade means those festive celebrations is becoming a distant memories.
After baking a big batch of pineapple tarts the previous day, we opted for something easier and faster. It was Sunday and there was heaps to do. I was slogging in the kitchen making bacon jam and prepping the flour for baking kuih bangkit. Mister found this cookie recipe in the Nonya book and it is his one of his favourite festive goodies. So he jumped in and got his hands dirty. I have admit he is a much better in baking than me. I really suck.
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