Basket Sweet

There is 2 more weeks to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and the most important delicacy during this festival is called Nian Gao, or like what Fairuz told me today its also called as Basket delicacy.

The main ingredient in Nian Gao is glutinous rice flour and sugar, which gives it the stickiness. The process involves steaming. Nian Gao in Malaysia commonly come as a short cylinder wrapped in a banana leaves

Nian Gao can be steamed & eaten with shredded coconut, which I prefer the most, but I like to eat the fresh one, the best is one that has been freshly made, you can just eat without reheating.

Another way to serve Nian Gao is to deep fry it. After cutting into square pieces, it is sandwiched between some sweet potatoes or yam, and then it is deep-fried after dipping into egg and some flour.

As what my old people always say, Nian-Gao which translated as year-cakes symbolizes getting a lot of promotions, because the name is also short for the phrase “nian-nian gao-sheng” which mean to get promoted higher every year.

There is another old folk story where it is believed that on the 24th day of the 12th lunar month, the Kitchen God will return to heaven to give a report to the Jade Emperor regarding each family, The idea is to offer such super sticky gluey Nian Gao to him so that he would find it difficult for him to talk thereby talk less when reporting to the Jade Emperor.

Tag: Niao Gao, CNY, Chinese New Year, Chinese Delicacy, New Year Cake.