Feeling rushed to get something together for Lunar New Year?
You’re not alone. It’s part of the fun and excitement of celebrating major
holidays. On the other hand, come Sunday, you can slither into the Year of the
Snake with a simple sweet and warm cup of tea. Sit down and contemplate the
year to come.
Pick your lucky fruit(s).
This holiday typically means lots of fruit displays. I keep it to a minimum
with tangerines. This year, a friend shared a bag of mandarin oranges grown by
her father in Fresno. Sweet as candy, they’re better than store bought! I’m
thankful for my friend Diane’s generosity.
Many Viet people go all out for special Tet lucky fruit
trays. You’re suppose to make a sculpture with 5 (lucky number!) types of fruit
and set them on your ancestral altar. We
never had that when we were growing up because we focused on preparing
traditional Viet foods. My parents, ardent Catholics, say their daily rosary in
front of portraits of my grandparents. I figure that we’re covered year-round.
Last Friday we went to a Burmese restaurant in Daly City
that was just fabulous. We ordered way too much food at Little Yangon that
there was little room for dessert. After a lengthy conversation with chef/owner
Khinn Ma Ma, we realized that our parking meter was nearly out and hurriedly
asked for the check. She promptly responded but also sent us off with a
complimentary mango pudding to “sweeten our palate.” It was gelled with agar so
the texture was very firm. Flavorwise, it was delicately sweet – much like the
mango pudding that you get at dim sum restaurants, which I seldom order. Such mango puddings are
often made with evaporated milk, which kind of deadens the fresh brightness of mango.
After I had a few bites, I thought about making my own, without evaporated
milk.
If you’re not familiar with mango pudding, it has British colonial roots in India but is
super popular tropical Asia, though it’s not a major deal in Vietnam. Sometimes
the pudding is soft like a custard but
while other times it is super firm like jello. The former is generally
thickened with cornstarch while the latter is gelled with agar agar or
gelatine. I like the firm, jello-like texture but admit that it's not a luscious pudding per se. However in the Asian mindset, this sweet snack hails from the pudding family but got changed along the way to fit local situations.
Whenever I see ugly peaches for sale at a steep price, I think of poaching them for a quick summertime sweet. It’s quick and easy old-fashioned cooking. If you're like me and used to long for the canned peaches that went into the fruit cocktails that our moms made in the 1970s, this is the adult version.
Super ripe peaches are relatively easy to peel with a peeler or even your fingers. I got these at our local farmer’s market last week. There were the “rejects” at an organic stand where the “best quality ones” were being sold for $3 per pound. My uglies were $1 per pound. I selected four, imagining that they’d fit into a small pot at home.
The peaches were freestone or semi-freestone, meaning that the pit pulled away easily from the flesh; such peaches are great for cutting up for pies and the like. You can use clingstone but it may be hard to halve and remove the pit, a step I take to hasten the poaching process. Most commercially sold peaches are freestone or semi-freestone.
Baked gluten-free buns are less tricky to make than steamed ones because you bake them in the same pan that you let them rise in. The result looks like giant macarons or pfeffernusse – low domes. They’re firmer and denser than your typical baked bao, but they are tasty in their own right.
Making a flavorful filling is important because it stamps the bao with extra texture and savor. I used char siu pork for the ones pictured above. Other filling options are mentioned below for savory and sweet buns. If you’re super sensitive to gluten, you’ll have to figure out alternatives for certain Asian ingredients used in the fillings. See this post for guidance on gluten-free Asian ingredients.
Prepared with a rice flour-and-starch dough, these steamed gluten-free bao remind me of sticky-rice dumplings, though the gluten-free ones are firmer, buff in color, and bit translucent in appearance. They’re good tasting and I'd gladly offer them to guests who have a difficult time with gluten.
You’ll have to let the formed buns rise in a deep baking pan, then transfer them to a steamer tray to cook. When I let the buns rise in a bamboo steamer tray, the dough didn’t have a warm enough environment to rise due to the open nature of the steamer tray. It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to get yeasty action going.
