Page 8 - BACGG CNY Traditions Flipbook 01262021

New Years Snacks:
Source – “Good Luck Life” by Rosemary
Gong http://www.goodlucklife.com
Our Moms always made homemade
delicacies, sweets and bought oranges to give
to friends and family to celebrate the new
year. Here are the sweets to present and give:

Tray of Togetherness – This tray of sweets and snacks is shared when visitors
come to visit. An eight sectional platter displays different snacks or sweets in each
section of preserved kumquats, plums, sugar preserved melon, sugar preserved coconut
slices, and red dates and Red melon seeds. In the middle of the tray, display an orange
with a stem and a two leaves still intact. This tray was displayed at home to share with
anyone visiting during the Spring Festival days.

Chinese New Year’s Glutinous Rice Cake, Nian Gao - Sweet and dense, nian
gao’s can be home made or purchased at Asian markets a few weeks leading up to
Chinese New Year.

Tangerines and Oranges are displayed and given as gifts to anyone you visit
during Spring Festival. Ideally look for tangerines with green leaves still on the stem.
When displaying, always set out at least a pair or better yet, five or more together with a
Lai See of lucky money. In Asia, we often saw gift boxes of perfect tangerines, oranges
and other fruits ready for you to purchase as gifts to present to family or friends. Today,
you can find these fruit gift boxes ready in the US Asian markets.

Fried Chinese pastries were made every Chinese New Year to give to friends
and family. Recipes called for deep frying because most homes in China did not have
ovens. Making these Chinese pastries are very similar to making different Christmas
cookies during the holidays. Listed below are a few Chinese New Year pastries Jeannie
Young remembered making with her mom. All these recipes were also deep-fried:

Ngow Sing –These were made with a yeast type bread dough, that was rolled
out into a long cord length of 12+”, then folded in half and twisted to look like a cow tail.
After these were deep fried, they are crunchy like breadsticks. Ngow Sing were served
like cookies, and not sweet.
Recipe in Good Luck Life by Rosemary Gong, and recipe is in the BACGG Cookbook

Gok Jai – crescent shaped and fried to a golden brown color, these goodies
were filled with a mixture of sugar, coconut, sesame seeds, and ground peanuts. The
edge of each gok jai was crimped and folded over by hand.
Check the following site for Gok Jai recipe:
Recipe in Good Luck Life by Rosemary Gong, and recipe is in the BACGG Cookbook
https://healthynibblesandbits.com/cantonese-sweet-fried-dumplings/

Dan San – Bowties are deep fried, then dipped in a sugar-syrup. The sugar
syrup was made with plain white sugar syrup, but is even better when made with brown
sugar. Another way to sweeten was to dust with powder sugar and cinnamon, making it
easier to store this version. My Mom made bow ties with white sugar syrup and later I
saw bowties sold at Eastern Bakery in San Francisco, which tells me these were not
unique to the New Year.

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