Happy New Year Everyone!

We took a week off, following the traditions and to fight all the evil spirits and not wanting to bring any bad luck.  Right!  Actually, kids were off last week, and combined with all the snow and Chinese New Year celebrations, we were too exhausted to blog.  

During the week off, I ate a lot of gāo.  The literally translation is cake, but most gāo that I ate was not the sweet ones that most people are accustomed to.  Chinese people eat these gāo a lot during Chinese New Year.  The word cake, or gāo, sounds the same as the word “High” or 高.  Therefore, eating a lot of gāo has a symbolic meaning of raising oneself higher.

Some of the 糕 gāo our family likes to eat during Chinese New Year are:

• Radish Cake – 蘿蔔糕 – This is not a sweet kind of cake, and a lot of dim sum places have them on a regular basis too.  It is delicious and it is usually cut into rectangular pieces and pan fried before serving.  My boys love them!  I found this recipe from Tasty Treats, check it out.
• Sticky Rice Cake – 年糕 – This literally means year cake, and my parents only make them during Chinese New Year.  Wemake the Cantonese version, which is sweetened with brown sugar.  It is also pan fried before serving.  My Dad makes a really good one, I will have to make sure I put that into my family recipe blog.
• Taro Cake – 芋頭糕 – Very similar to radish cake, except the change of taro instead of radish.  It offers a different texture than the radish cake, slightly denser.  Here’s a good recipe from Chow Times.