This is a very easy breakfast or snack to make.

Ingredients (serve 2-3)

1. 2 eggs
2. 2 tablespoon sugar
3. 6 slice of white bread
4. some oil for pan frying

Method

1. Crack the 2 eggs on a plate that has slight depth.  Add in sugar and whisk with spoon or fork till sugar dissolved.
2. Heat up a frying pan, add some oil.
3. For ever slice of bread, dip it into the egg to coat both sides.  Do not press to allow the bread to absorb the egg, just dip and allow the sides to be coated with eggs.  Put immediately on the pan to fry flip over when lightly brown,
4. Serve warm.
5. You can eat it just like that, or spread with peanut butter, or drip with honey,

This is quite like the usual snow fungus dessert, but adding dried apricot gives it a fruity sour taste from the usual red date taste.  Kids will like it chilled.

Ingredients

1. 10 dried appricots
2. 10 red dates
3. 20 grams dried snow fungus or roughly the size of a clenched fist
4. 1 tablespoon north almonds (北杏)
5. 1 tablespoon south almonds (南杏)
6. 10-15 tablespoon sugar (depending on your taste)
7. 2 litres water

Method

1. Soak the snow fungus in water for 3 hours or until fully expanded.
2. Rinse the snow fungus and cut into small pieces and put into a pot with 2l water.
3. Wash red dates and the almonds and put into the pot.
4. Bring to boil and lower flame to simmer for 1 hour. 
5. Add in the dry apricots and simmer for another 1-2 hours.  Adding the apricots earlier together, from the start of cooking in step 3 is ok, except it will be much softer.   (if total cooking time is 2 hours, the snow fungus should be slightly crunchy, 3 hours will be softer).
6. Add sugar to taste.
7. Cool it and chill in fridge for a refreshing desserts.
8. Can be served warm too.

Kok Zai is one of the many Chinese New Year goodie.  It has flour cracker outside with crush peanut and sugar filling, made into a mini-puff like shape (that is now the name is derived, like a mini “horn”).   This recipe is from my mom.  She makes it every year.

Ingredients

For filings

1. 600 gms raw peanuts
2. 300 gms fine sugar

For dough

1. 600 gms wheat flour
2. 1 tablespoon sugar mixed with ½ cup water
3. 1 tablespoon margarine
4. 1 egg

For frying

1. Oil for deep frying

Method

Filing

1. In a pan without oil, stir fry peanuts with low heat, until fragrant (skin a little burnt). Refer to tips for more information.
2. Leave it to cool, and remove the skin.  Crush it with food processor. Mixed with sugar.

Dough

1. Sieve the flour on a mixing table, and make a heap.  Make a depression in the middle, and crack in the egg, and margarine. Mix in the flour slowly with fingers, and adding the sugar water slowly. 
2. Keep mixing and adding water slow until a soft dough is form.  If the sugar solution runs out, use plain water.  Cover with damp cloth for 1 hour.
3. Separate into smaller portion, roll out with rolling pin, and make mini-puffs filled with peanuts and sugar mixture. (either using fingers to fold, or you get some gadget to help you make the puffs)
4. Deep fry till golden brown.
5. Keep in air tight container when totally cooled down.

 Vegetarian (with eggs).

This is recommended by my TCM practitioner.  The body tends to have low immunity to respiratory infection when too “heaty”.  This recipe is good to be consumed frequently, as it helps the body to be more “cooling” but not too “cooling” to result in join pains or rheumatism.  It is more “nourishing”   (”yuen” or 润) than cooling.

In this period where swine flu A(H1N1) is around, might be a good idea to make this once or twice a week to increase immunity.

Black sugar preferred as it will also help to remove the toxic in the body (去毒).  You can get them at any TCM shops like 福华 or 正中平.

Black sugar cane can be optional, as it is sometime hard to find in the supermarket.

Ingredients

1. ½ Winter Melon (round type like volley ball)
2. 25 water chestnut
3. 1/3 cup barley
4. 3-4 sticks of black sugar cane (optional)
5. Sugar (prefer black sugar bought from TCM shops, otherwise use rock sugar)

Method

1. Brush the skin of the winter melon to remove the powdery stuffs.  Cut open and remove the seeds by scraping with a spoon.  Cut into chunks with skin on.
2. Brush water chestnut to remove all the soil (This needs some patience).  Cut away the top (a lot of flaky skin), and also for you to check if the water chestnut is spoil (with yellow patches or soggy inside, good one should be white).  Put them into a plastic bag, and smash it with stone pestle or handle of your cleaver. (putting them into plastic bag is to prevent the juice spraying all over.)
3. Rinse barley
4. Wash black sugar cane and smash it with stone pestle or handle of your cleaver.
5. Put all ingredient except sugar into a big stock pot with about 4 liters of water.  Bring to boil and simmer in low flame for 5-6 hours.
6. Scoop up all the ingredients with a sieve and discard, add black sugar to taste (depending on your taste, 6-10 table spoon is enough).

This is a cooling and nourishing for the lungs (in TCM terms - traditional Chinese Medicine) dessert and good to take when you have cough or having green phlegm.  Otherwise, it can also be taken as a dessert for cooling the system anytime.

Ingredients

1. 1 round winter melon ,(not those huge Chinese winter melon, but use those round ones about a size of a volley ball)
2. Water
3. Rock Sugar (as the “rock” size vary, approximate to about 5 tablespoon of sugar combined)

Method

1. Wash the outside of melon.
2. Using a sharp knife, cut off the top end (the end with the stalk) with a nice clean cut, and the piece that was cut out is about 5 cm at the thickest point (center), and it looks like a “cover” of about 10-15 cm diameter.  We need this to cover the melon during steaming.
3. Using a spoon, scoop out the seeds of the melon from the cut end and hence leaving a hollow center in the melon.
4. Put in the rock sugar, and water to fill up the hollow.
5. Cover with the “cover” that was cut out in step 2 so that it is back to a round melon.  Secure with tooth picks.
6. Using a metal bowl as a base to hold the melon upright without spilling its content.
7. Steam the whole melon in medium heat for 1 ½ to 2 hours.
8. When done, open up the “cover” and scoop out the water and using spoon scoop out the flesh (should be very soft now) and serve in a bowl.