As sourrain.com prepares to welcome the year of the Rat, here’s my home decoration (not decorating my own house this year) a rip off from 5xmom’s falling flowers. Many thanks to Guru Moo for uploading it

The flowers seem to dissapear when i scroll down to the next page – anyone having the same issues?

A little chinese urban legend goes that if you have conjuntivitis, that means you’re a peeping tom…either spying at your neighbour showering or your brother in the loo. Did you guys get that when you were young? I hated getting conjuntivitis – my whole family would tease me mercilessly and I can’t even cry with my poor eyelids stuck together. Hamsup (seedy/kinky/dirty old man) would be the least insult that’ll be used on me.At 4 years old.

Yesterday I nearly could not open my eyes. It hurts to even blink. My left eye is nearly swollen shut now. Probably due to the fact that I had peeped at bacon bathing OD-ed on chocs & mandarin oranges for my CNY self-celebration. It’s like as if I cannot stop peeling them oranges – best part is any other time of the year I DO NOT LIKE TO EAT CITRUS. Only in this 15 days of Chinese New Year that I go bonkers over it. Sigh.Anyway. I believe that due to the OD I am now ‘yit hei’ (too much yang, too much heaty food ect ect) and I wish i could just pop into any coffeeshop and ask for a pack of ice cold barley water with lime.All I have now is a measly bottle of Optrex, hopefully to keep my eyes free from infection before I get to the doctor’s tomorrow.Which, due to UK’s absolutely failure of a state-supported medical care, I cannot see until 2.40pm tomorrow.You think got 24hrs clinic ar?? Even hospital also they ask you NOT to go – unless you really are dying.

Best part? I have an extremely important interview tomorrow. Which I shall now be going in a Captain Hook eyepatch.

Hello God.It’s me. If you are listening, might as well you just shoot an arrow through my heart and kill me, kill me now!

Unlike my cheena-wannabe self, I adore desserts. I have an extremely sweet tooth, and will only stop when my teeth cries out in pain from the attack of sugars. However, chinese meals are seldom ended on a sweet note, unless you are off for a full sit-down 8 course meal – which happens on Chinese New Years and wedding dinners.

Chinese dessert usually have strange and wonderful names. It is usually some auspicious-sounding name – like four seasons ect. So I have decided to name my self-conccoted desset as well – presenting Growing Treasures.

Ingredients:

Dried white fungus. Be VERY prudent
6 red chinese dates
2-3 pandan leaves (pandanus leaves/ screwpine leaves) tied in a knot
100g of pak kor/ peh kueh (gingko nuts)
a couple of quail’s egg
wonton skin (optional)
rock sugar – according to taste

Soak the white fungus in warm water for a couple of hours. The reason this dish is called growing treasures is because the fungus grows and expands and nearly pop! It is HUGE. A fistfull will grow into a huge potful if you are not careful, and you won’t be able to fit anything else in it.

After the fungus is semi-soft, pop it into the pot and start boiling. You can now put those in:

rock sugar and tied pandan leaves.

Let it boil away merrily for an hour, and then add the dates. In the meantime, crack open the gingko nuts. Make sure YOU REMOVE THE HEART OF THE NUT with a toothpick…if you do not do that you will be very,very sorry when you bite into the extremely bitter centre. Me, in emulating the year of the golden pig, got some pre-cracked, de-hearted gingko nuts. Cheating, my mother laughed at me.

Depending on how long you’ve soaked your white fungus, you might only need to cook it for 2 hours, or like me, you might need more than that. Gingko nuts need at least an hour in the pot, so time it carefully.

When you are satisfied that the fungus is completely cooked, add the wonton skins and the quails’ egg for a quick boil to heat through,should not take more than 5 minutes.

mmmmmmmm…the sweet taste of home cooked thong sui.

I sometimes feel I’ve been bitten by the chinky bug..my past couple of posts have all been ‘in the spirit of chinese new year’. Maybe I’m trying to prove to myself I can do happy canto techno…

Chinese New Year in my family starts with a buffet at some 5 starred hotel. Chinese New Year in my small family now starts with a mad dash to my local chinese supermarket) for some steamboat foodstuff. So last Friday, I rushed down to Wing Lee Hong after work to stock up on fishballs, prawns, noodles, wonton skin, bok choy,fish tofu, tofu and some quails’ eggs. I also bought a pot of hotpot bean sauce, just to see how it tasted like. Being in the rush of the hoardes of chinese people preparing for their new year as well made me feel, if only for a moment, part of a community preparing for the same celebration – just like christmas.

Saturday afternoon started with making the stock for the steam boat to go happily boiling in. It was a simple stock made out of 3 good-sized pork ribs and a couple of cracked peppercorns. It is then left merrily boiling for a good 3-4 hours to get the full flavour out of the marrow and the flesh.

For wonton filling:

1 pound minced pork
2 finely minced water chestunts
A dash or two of Lea & Perrins sauce
A dash of good-quality soy sauce (I import mine from Penang,so sue me)
some dried shitaake mushrooms, finely minced
pepper
some cornflour

In the meantime, defrost all the frozen foodstuff. Make sure that wonton skins, if frozen, are left out for a good 12 hours before you need it – it is NOT usable unfrozen.

Wontons are very easy to make, and much fun as well. Mix the inggredients for the filling well,coating all of the meat with the seasonings. With your fingers, wet two corners of the wonton skin. Scoop a spoonful of stuffing and place it right in the middle, close the corners up so it forms a triangle. Apologies for lack of pictures – it was then that my camera decided to tell me that I am running out of pictures, so I had to be selective.

Its so easy even Bacon can make it .

Oh, don’t forget to hard boil your quail’s eggs as well. I once saw some kwai lous drop the whole egg in shell and all in the steamboat’s stock – DO NOT DO THAT! Imagine all the chicken shit that you would be slurping in addition to your delicious stock.Gross.

Boil the eggs separately, and peel the shell off – that way all the bird crap on the shells are boiled and removed separate from your stock.Quail’s eggs are pretty small, I tend to just boil it for 3 mins and turn the gas off whilst it continues cooking.

ta-da!

Start dropping whatever you want to eat into the boiling stock. Trick is, anything that is floating is cooked and ready to eat, so tuck in! Most people like rice or noodles to go with it as well, but seeing that me and bacon weren’t that hungry we gave that a miss.

Hmm…what’s for dessert?