Chinese New Year 2019

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The Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year is upon us!

One aspect of the holiday that I particularly enjoy is how wordplay and homophones factor into the selection of traditional foods. An example is nian gao, a glutinous rice cake sweetened with brown or white sugar and a homophone for “high year” – with the connotation of elevating oneself higher with each new year, perhaps even lifting one’s spirits.

This is the Year of the Pig 🐷 which, of course, is my cue to taste every traditional delight I can get my trotters on, but there was one year when the means by which to sample a particular nian gao turned into a complete mystery.

Curious? Please read my very short story, “The Case of the Uncrackable Case!”

 
 

Chinese New Year’s Eve 2019

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The Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is a dazzling banquet for the soul that is laden with more symbolism than a Jungian interpretation of a Fellini dream sequence inspired by a Carlos Castaneda novel.

And that’s one of the elements that I love most about the holiday: wordplay and homophones figure into the choices for traditional foods (more about that tomorrow) along with their colors and shapes.

For Lunar New Year’s Eve (“Reunion Dinner”), I’ve prepared a duck soup with shiitake mushrooms, daikon, flowering chives, bean leaf, Shanghai bok choy, scallions, cilantro, dried red chili pepper, and too many seasonings to mention, but the focus is on the long noodles that are aspirational of a long life.

Stay tuned for more….

新年快乐! Xīnnián kuàilè!
 
 

Matsuya Stick Cookies

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Since we’re on the topic of Asian cookies, you might want to give these Stick Biscuits a try if you see them in a Japanese or Chinese market. For the language nerds reading this, the Japanese katakana on the label, スティック ビスケット, written vertically in the two columns on the left reads “sutikku bisuketto” (drop the silent letter U’s and you’ll hear “stick biscuit”) and the larger kanji 牛乳 on the right means cow’s milk. They are indeed made with milk or perhaps it means they’re destined to be enjoyed with milk, but that’s as far as my language skills can carry me. They appear to be manufactured in Taiwan by Matsuya.

I’ve seen four kinds: brown sugar, cocoa, sesame, and milk. All are good, not too sweet (there’s that phrase again) and rather addictive as much for the taste as the crunchy texture which is about as hard as a cookie can be and still not effect an emergency visit to the dentist. The rigidity adds to the fun, however: my first thought was to plunge them into something harmonious – use the cocoa version to scoop up some peanut butter or dunk the milk variety in Nutella; any dip of similar consistency and yumminess would suffice. There’s a Greek brand of delicious sweet tahini, one type is flavored with chocolate, another with orange (it might be worthy of a post of its own) that was perfect with the sesame flavor. Sort of like Pocky on steroids.

And if your sugar high flies too far off the charts, they can be repurposed as playthings as well: think Lincoln Logs. Jenga anyone?
 
 

Sweet Osmanthus Cakes

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Sweet Osmanthus Cakes (Gui Hua Gao, 桂花糕) are available in many markets throughout New York City’s magnificent Chinatowns. Used throughout Asia, osmanthus shows up in tea and tea blends as well as jams, liquors, and sweet gelatin desserts, often with goji berries embedded in gravity defying suspension. It has a buttery, floral fragrance with a subtle flavor – I’d describe it as somewhere along the apricot-leather continuum, if there were such a thing.

These delicacies are uncharacteristically sweet as Chinese baked goods go and have a coarse, slightly crumbly texture, cakier than a shortbread cookie and cookier than a cake – a biscuit, perhaps? Unsurprisingly, they are more comfortable in the company of tea than coffee (in my opinion, at least).

[2] The inside scoop.

[3] One brand’s packaging so you’ll know what to look for if you’re so inclined. I like ’em.
 
 

Durian Pizza in Flushing (for Edible Queens)

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I wrote a story about Durian Pizza in Flushing for Edible Queens. It begins:

There’s an old adage about durian: “Smells like hell, tastes like heaven!”

Whatever you may have heard about this fruit, it probably wasn’t encouraging. Some regard durian with mild amusement, some with outright disdain, while others have come to appreciate its unique personality. My objective is to disabuse you of any prejudices you may harbor about the “King of Fruits” (as it’s known in Southeast Asia) and direct you to a local restaurant where you can indulge—fearlessly—in its charms….

…keep reading….
 
 

Korai Kitchen

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Bangladeshi cuisine is different from Indian cuisine and even that of West Bengal, and one of the best ways to sample it is in a buffet setting where you can taste a bit of many delights. Fortunately, Korai Kitchen, Jersey City’s first Bangladeshi eatery, features a lunch buffet (Tuesday – Friday) and a weekend buffet that spans lunch and dinner Friday through Sunday with an ever-changing array of dishes.

[2] Annotated photo of my first (ahem) plate.

[3] Buffet is currently their only format, no formal menu yet, although you can order a few special items on weekends like hilsa, the beloved national fish of Bangladesh.

[4] A bhortha (you may see bharta) is an intensely flavored vegetable or fish mash, usually containing mustard oil, which is used as a condiment or over rice. Here is the quartet shown on my plate which included Karela Bhaja. Karela is a spiky cousin to Chinese bitter melon and bhaja means it’s been fried.

Other items that didn’t make it to that first plate included [5] a shutki (dried fish, in this case dried shrimp) dish, potent and delicious, and [6] dessert that comprised chai; lacha semai, made from vermicelli and hot milk; and mishti doi, a sweetened, thick yogurt, almost the texture of a custard or pudding and a personal favorite.

Lots more at Korai Kitchen, 576 Summit Ave, Jersey City where the owner, Nure Rahman is beyond helpful and absolutely charming, and Mama Rahman is in the kitchen making everything by hand.

And yes, I’m going back.
 
 

NY Indonesian Food Bazaar

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A reminder about tomorrow’s NY Indonesian Food Bazaar (Saturday, January 26) at St James Episcopal Church, 84-07 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens. It feels like each time I go, there’s something different to taste – and everything I’ve tasted has been wonderful. Here are a few treats from previous monthly events.

[1] Ikan Mujair Pepes – Ikan means fish, Mujair refers to the Javanese inventor who experimented with raising freshwater tilapia, and pepes is a method of cooking that uses banana leaves to seal in flavors. This savory fish was coated with shallots, scallions, lemongrass, garlic, chili, turmeric, and candlenuts.

[2] Babi Rica, a delicious pork (babi) dish hailing from Manado, the capital city of the Indonesian province of North Sulawesi from Kantin Rica Rica’s table.

[3] One of the happiest aspects of the bazaar is the opportunity to pick and choose a bit of this and a bite of that; this plate featured fried tofu, shrimp, mussels, and jengkol, the outsized seeds of a legume tree that taste like a tender, meaty bean served over yellow rice with two spicy sambals because 🌶️ is the name of the game.

[4] My Indonesian dessert weakness from the folks at Enak Iki: Martabak Manis (manis means sweet). This kind of martabak has the texture of a soft crumpet; the mixed version (shown here) is folded around chocolate, peanuts, grated fresh cheese, and sesame seeds. So good!
 
 

Chicks Isan

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Feeling peckish? You might consider a visit to the stall from Chicks Isan that roosts in DeKalb Market, 445 Albee Square West in Brooklyn. If you like chicken wings, you need to try their Zaab Wings – you might see the spelling “zabb” elsewhere but either way it’s your clue that you’re hearing about food from northeast Thailand; the word means flavorful and delicious. Speckled with a crunchy coating combining chili, lime, and mint, they’re crisp, spicy, and not at all greasy.

There’s more to a bird than its wings, however, so we also got an order of Isan Style Grilled Chicken (Kai Yang) marinated with shallot, garlic, turmeric, and coriander root. (Thai cooking commonly uses coriander root along with the stems and leaves; it brings a pungent, earthy quality to the party.) The agreeably grilled half chicken came accompanied by two sauces, the sweet-hot orange colored one you see universally, and a more unusual herby, spicy variety that complemented it distinctively.

Lots more to try from their menu as well….
 
 

Manting Restaurant

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Mala Tang and Mala Xiang Guo are Sichuan dishes that are underrepresented in Manhattan’s Theater District, but those are the specialties at Manting Restaurant, 150 W49th St. We were invited to taste their renditions amid a selection of other items on the menu, and we happily obliged.

[1] They feature eight kinds of Mala Tang, the spicy, soupy hot pot, in ready-made versions such as beef, lamb, fish (pictured), seafood and vegetable. When I see “málà”, I expect numbing, spicy Sichuan peppercorns but the best I could tell was that this was ignited only by dried red chili peppers. Not complaining though: we requested very spicy and we actually got it. Spoon some of the sauce over rice for maximum enjoyment.

[2] Mala Xiang Guo, spicy dry pot, is a stir fry in which diners can choose from among 35 items that include meats (beef, lamb, chicken, tripe, kidney, for example), seafood (shrimp, fish fillet, squid), and a garden of vegetables (like mushrooms, cabbage, cauliflower, seaweed) and tofu. Choose your favorites, specify a spice level, and you’re set. Read the menu carefully regarding portion size and pricing: it’s priced per pound with a 1.5 pound minimum and a surcharge for orders under 2 pounds, but you’ll probably exceed those anyway if there are at least two of you. Common sense dictates that if you request many ingredients but the size of your order is modest, you may find only one piece of something you desired in the bowl. We decided to get two of these, one with meats and [3] the other fish based. Both filled the bill.

[4] We opted for the Scallion Egg Pancake appetizer, sort of an omletized scallion bing.

谢谢, Manting!
 
 

Shaanxi Tasty Food – Cumin Fried Noodles with Beef

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A couple of months ago, I wrote about Shaanxi Tasty Food, stall 27 in Super HK Food Court, 37-11 Main St, Flushing, in the basement of Super HK Supermarket. Shaanxi Province is in the northwest region of China and “tasty” describes the cuisine precisely. In that post, I raved unabashedly about their Oil Spill Noodle, aka Oil Splashed Noodle, so when my dining buddies and I were in the neighborhood the other night and about to embark on our second of three dinners (long story), it was a clear choice.

This time, we opted for the Cumin Fried Noodles with Beef (C3 on the menu, also available with chicken) and it was another hit. Now and then I have a taste for noodles that aren’t slathered in sauce or swimming in soup. These are dry – in the best sense – boasting a perfect chew, redolent of cumin, touched with a toss of bean sprouts, scallion and carrots plus a little kick from green pepper.

More to come from Super HK Food Court….