We had a lovely smaller Chinese New Year party this year. This party we tend to keep to around 6-8 people. It gets too crazy otherwise. I’m still occasionally weird about asking people to make or bring foods.

Fancy even got into the spirit, since it’s the Year of the Dog. I made her a little bow for her party harness. This picture was taken after the party. She was so sleepy!

Fancy got some beef scraps and a large amount of carrots. She my have even gotten her pets and belly rubs quota filled, although she would tell you otherwise.

I made a pretty table runner for us, but forgot to take a picture of the table. It currently is waiting to be washed, as it got some cheesecake on it. Whoops! You can see a little of it in the featured picture.

We completely forgot to give out red packets! Traditionally they contain money, but we filled them with other things as well. I may mail them out, or just use it as an excuse to go see people again. 🙂

Now, on to the food!

We had a beef hotpot for the main. We had a bunch of veggies out and then cooked the meat in the broth. I added keffir lime leaves, lemon grass, garlic powder, white pepper, and soy sauce to chicken broth. The meat was marinated with sesame oil, soy sauce, and sherry.

I was told by a reliable source that cheesecake is a perfectly acceptable dessert, if you don’t want to make traditional dishes, so I ran with it. I made a blood orange cheesecake with a blood orange caramel sauce. I also attempted to candy blood orange slices, but it didn’t go as well as planned. I think my water/sugar ratio was off. The recipe is from New River Groves. http://newrivergroves.com/orange-cheesecake-recipe

I have one bone to pick with this recipe. It had me cook it in a water bath and then immediately put it in the fridge to cool. It wasn’t supposed to crack, but take a look….

This was maybe an hour after putting it in the fridge! I was incredibly upset and annoyed. The Husband was probably shocked at the unladylike language that was issuing from the kitchen. I covered up the crack with orange slices and poured caramel over it and it still tasted good. I would recommend leaving it to cool in the oven for at least an hour before pulling it. That’s what I’ve done in the past.

I used the Chicken and Shrimp Jaozi from the Dumplings book from the kit we got for Christmas. We ate the dumplings too fast for me to remember a picture. Here is a picture of when you forget that the flames from a gas stove may, in fact, catch things on fire…

We’ll stick to using our rice cooker as a steamer thank you! The dumplings were delicious though and we have a bunch of them in the freezer. I was originally concerned that they wouldn’t be as flavorful as I would want them to be, but it turned out the recipe was right!

I was brave and made spring rolls! We made them veggie, as the recipe called for pork, but I wanted to be able to eat them. They were  little dark, but were still good. These were from The Food Of China by Deh-Ta Hsiung and Nina Simonds. 

We also used the same book to make char sui bao, or barbecued steamed buns. We had pork and chicken. These are the chicken buns.

I had help putting them together and we marked the pork ones with red food coloring. Technically, that would mean they were sweet in a restaurant, bur my other choice was blue and that would be weird…The pork ones were gone in a flash! I ate the rest of the chicken buns yesterday. They were delicious!

To make the pork for it, I combined soy sauce, char sui bbq sauce, white pepper, and garlic powder. I poured it over 4 pork loin chops and turned them until they were coated and then baked them at 350 for maybe half an hour? Then I chopped them up very small and stuck the pieces back in the cooking dish.

I used this recipe for the chicken buns: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/steamed-chinese-five-spice-chicken-buns/0a40c00f-7750-4e31-935a-c5bd156f44b7

Mmm… they were good!

So I had a request to share the steamed bun dough recipe as well. It’s kind of a weird dough. It raises for 3 hours and you knead baking powder into it right before you form them, which activates and make it very fluffy. I used The Food of China’s basic yeast dough. I will write it out, as I’m not sure where to find the book. No copyright infringement intended.

“Ingredients:

3 T sugar

1 C warm water

1 1/2 tsp dried yeast

3 1/4 C flour

2 T oil- I used half canola/ half sesame

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

“Makes 1 quantity” – roughly 24 small, 12 large

Method:

Dissolve the sugar in the water, then add the yeast. Stir lightly, then set aside for 10 minutes, or until foamy.

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the yeast mixture and the oil. Using a wooden spoon, mix the ingredients into a rough dough. Turn the mixture out unto a lightly floured surface, and knead for 8-10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. If it is very sticky, knead in a little more flour-the dough should be soft. Lightly grease a bowl with the oil. Place dough in the bowl and turn it so that all the sides of the dough are coated. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set aside to rise in a draft-free place for 3 hours.

Uncover the dough, punch it down, and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. If you are not using the dough right away, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

When you are ready to use the dough, flatten it and make a well in the center. Place the baking powder in the well and gather up the edges to enclose the baking powder. Pinch the edges together to seal. Lightly knead the dough for several minutes to evenly incorporate the baking powder, which will activate immediately.

Use the prepared dough as directed.”

So if you follow it, you too can have delicious fresh bao! Let me know how it works if you try it! Happy Lunar New Year!