What to expect at the fair this year?

I mentioned that OC Fair (July 13-August 12) is around the corner on my previous post.  I am looking forward to eat my favorite fair food and also try some new "heart-attack" deep fried items at the fair next month.  This year, Chicken Charlie's, southern California's famous king of the deep fryer, will have a brand new deep fried item to offer at the fair this year - deep-fried cereal! Two cereal options could be chosen from Trix or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, both are fried in batter and sprinkled with more sugary cereal for extra crunchy texture.  It might be a good idea if they could serve us milk too=)

Have a "Sweet" Chinese New Year

First of all, Happy Chinese New Year!  I wish everyone will have a great "dragon" year.

Chinese New Year Eve family dinner
from my friend's picture on facebook

My highschool's frined New Year Eve's dinner
with her in-laws

My friend's back home was having
some great food with her family on New Year Eve.

As many of you know that Chinese like to eat to celebrate major festivals.   Most of the dishes we made for the new year celebration symbolize good fortune and good health.  Chinese like playing with words and symbols.  Often homonyms (words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings and characters) are used.  Names of dishes and/or their ingredients, which will be served sound similar to words and phrases referring to wishes expressed during the Chinese New Year, while other foods hold a symbolic meaning (source from One World - National Online). 

Different styles and prints of red pockets/red envelopes
(Picture from Google.com)

"Full Box"
(Picture from Google.com)

As a kid, Chinese New Year was fun because the parents usually have the first 3 days off (official paid holidays) and the family visit different relative's house during the first 2 days of the new year (in Chinese tradition, each family should prepare a full box of different goodies (we call this box "Full Box" meaning full in every aspect the upcoming year) to welcome their guests.  They could be candies, roasted seeds, sugar covered lotus seeds or lotus wheels, etc.) and on the top of eating, the kids or people who are single receive "red pocket/red envelope" from elders and/or married couples. 

My grand mom got up very early (about 4-5am) the first day of the new year.  She got up early to prepare the dough for making sesame seed balls (Zeen Doy) and Chinese sweet empanadas (both usually filled with sesame paste or redbean paste).  My sister and I helped my grand mom to roll the dough and stuff the filling inside the sesame seed balls or the sweet empandas.  It's so fun to watch my grand mom putting the balls and the empanadas in a big hot wok to deep frying these goodies. 
 

Cantonese style nian gao
(Picture from Wikipedia)

 Another very common sweet item we eat during Chinese New Year is nian gao ("nian gao" is a homonym for "higher year." The Chinese word 粘 (nián), meaning "sticky", is identical in sound to 年, meaning "year", and the word 糕 (gāo), meaning "cake" is identical in sound to 高, meaning "high".).  Nian gao is prepared from glutinous rice.  Different regions in China have their own version of nian gao.  Since I was born and raised in Macau, and we got influenced by the southern portion of China, I am more familar with the version of nian gao served in Canton.  Below is the information I found from Wikipedia:
The Cantonese nian gao is usually sweetened with brown sugar. It is distinct with a dark yellow color. The paste is poured into a cake pan and steamed once more to settle mixture. The batter is steamed until it solidifies and served in thick slices. It may be eaten as is. The nian gao becomes stretchy and extremely sticky. It can also be served as a pudding flavored with rosewater or red bean paste.

Pan-fried nian gao
(Picture from Wikipedia)

The next stage is optional as it can be pan-fried afterwards,often with egg, to make (煎年糕, jyutping: zin1 nin4 gou1; pinyin: jiān nián gāo). When fried it is slightly crispy on the outside, and remains pasty on the inside. During Chinese New Year, it is cut into square pieces and served along with similar cake dim sum dishes like taro cake and water chestnut cake.

Nutella and Banana Won-Ton Recipe

Nutella banana won-ton with vanilla bean ice cream

In the past 2 years, I invited my family and friends get together at our house for a themed dinner on the weekend.  Each time, we picked different themes for the dinner.  So far we have done Germany, Asian, BBQ, Mexican, Italian (twice) and Southern food.  Unfortunately, we have not had the themed dinner for a while due to every one's busy schedule on the weekend. 

I made this very easy but extremely yummy Nutella and banana won-ton as our dessert for the Asian themed dinner.  As many of you might know, Asian or Chinese don't usually like sweet stuffs.  I remember Anthony Bourdain once said something on his show, No Reservation - At a Chinese restaurant, they usually give you an orange at the end of the meal as a dessert.  Yup, that's US!  Asian or Chinese don't usually eat sweet after meal.  If we do, we will probably had some bean soup (green, red or assorted beans) or rice ball soup to end our meal.  Even other Asian countries, they don't usually serve desserts after the meal too.  So when I was thinking of something to make for our Asian themed dinner, I was thinking of something Asian inspired but still appealing to my guests (sadly to say not everyone likes bean soup or other strange tasting or looking desserts most Asian like). 

So I was thinking who doesn't like deep fried won-ton (or food, deep fried food taste so good), and Nutella (surprisingly, my guests had never tried this tasty hazelnut spread before) and banana topped with powder sugar and vanilla ice cream.  Just by thinking about it, it made my mouth watering.

You will need:

1 pack of square won-ton wrappers (available at Asian supermarkets or some regular supermarkets)
1 small jar of Nutella (available at regular supermarkets)
2-3 banana (don't pick those old or "too green" one)
Vegetable oil (for deep frying dessert, I like to use vegetable oil because they taste milder than peanut oil.  But if I deep fried regular food, I would love to use peanut oil for more favor.)
Powder sugar (optional)
Vanilla ice cream (optional, I got mine from Trader Joe's)

lay the won-ton wrapper on the mat and

 put about one teaspoon Nutella spread on the top of the wrapper

(don't put too much though!)

Put a banana slice on the top of the spread

Seal them with water

Heat the oil, and put the won-ton in the wok

Inspired by the Fair - Deep Fried Koolaid

Smoked giant turkey leg, grilled corns, stuffed chili with cheese, giant hot dog, giant corn dog, funnel cake, and deep fried everything...hm...I smell OC FAIR! 

Mr. G and Mrs. G went to the fair over the weekend.  We always enjoy going to the fair because that's the only time we don't need to care about the calorie and nutrition information listed on the menu (because there is none of this information at the fair.  Eat at your own risk!)  And we did a lot of eating and cardio at the same time (hey, we walk around the whole fair.).

We have tried a new item this year - deep fried Koolaid!  We at first thought that it might be another gross item among all the deep fried stuffs.  Surprisingly, they taste amazingly good!  Mr. G's cousin and his girlfriend obsessed with this new treat, and they even went home to make their own deep fried koolaid.  I would like to share their recipe with everyone, so if you missed this new item at the fair, no worries!  DIY (Do It Yourself) at home!

Ingredients for Deep Fried Kool Aid:

3 Eggs
2 Cups of Milk
1/2 Cup of Sugar
3 2/3 Cups of Flour
1/2 Teaspoons of Salt
1/2 Cup of Cherry Kool Aid
2 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
Vegetable Oil For Frying

Making The Batter:
Beat the eggs and the sugar together in a mixing bowl. Slowly add the milk while beating slowly. Add all of the dry ingredients, and beat until the mixture is slow and creamy. The batter should be a bright pink color. Add more kool aid as desired.

Cooking Directions:
Cook in hot vegetable oil for about 3-4 minutes. Remove from the hot oil when the fried kool aid batter is golden brown and is crispy.

Allow the Deep Fried Kool Aid to cool a bit before eating. They will burn you badly if eaten too soon. Fried Kool Aid taste best with a fresh glass of Kool Aid!