Chef Recommends New Year Foods

 New Year Cake Niangao (New Year Cake)--is a popular Spring Festival treat, made of glutinous rice or millet flour and garnished with anything from bean to jujube paste, assorted fruits and preserves. By tradition, it is believed eating niangao will bring good luck.

Niangao Yang is the only factory in Beijing to specialize in new year's cake manufacturing. Founder Yang Qiliang was a private niangao vendor in his early years.

He had noticed the art of niangao making in decline and resolved to learn himself from the Muslim chefs in the Niujie neighborhood. Then Yang invented machines and processes to set up a factory. Niangao Yang's products are available in more than 80 of the city's department stores.

Ai Wo Wo (New Year's Cake)

Ingredients:
Glutinous rice (jiang mi), 500g
White sugar (bai tang), 125g
Rice flour (da mi mian, available on market), 75g
Fried sesame seeds (shou zhi ma), 50g
Dried fruit or fruit seeds (for example, peach seeds, watermelon seeds, chopped fried peanuts, walnuts, dried grapes), 50g

Steps:

Preparation: Steam rice
1. Wash the rice and soak in water for half an hour. Get rice out and steam for one hour.
2. Put in basin. Add 500g boiled hot water, and stir.
3. Steam for another half an hour.
Prepare fillings
Stir the fruit fillings with sugar.
Steam rice flour
Put the rice flour on a plate and steam in rice cooker for half an hour.

Making Ai Wo Wo

1. Mash the steamed rice until it gets sticky.
2. Put the steamed rice flour on the board.|
3. Roll it into long slab.
4. Separate into 50g portions.
5. Squash portion into plate with flat palm.
6. Put fruit filling in middle of flattened portion.
7. Wrap up filling.
8. Sprinkle steamed rice flour on the surface.
9. Serve.

Boiled Dumplings (jiaozi)

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups (500 g) flour, sifted10 1/2 oz (300 g) lean boneless pork or mutton, minced1 tbsp salt, or to taste.

6 1/2 tbsp (100 g) scallions, chopped.

2 teaspoon ginger(Jiang), chopped1/8 teaspoon five-spice powder1/2 teaspoon MSG(Wei Jing), optional.

Steps:

1. Mix the flour with 3 1/2 oz (100 ml) of water to make a dough. Knead until smooth and let stand for 30 minutes.

2. To prepare the filling, mix the pork or mutton with 7 oz (200 ml) of water and the salt. Stir in one direction until it becomes a paste. Add the scallions and blend well. Divide filling into 100 portions.

3. Divide the dough into 4 portions and roll into long rolls. Cut each into 25 pieces. Flatten each piece and roll into 2 inches (5 cm) circles. Place 1 portion of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough over it, making a bonnet-shaped pouch. Pinch the edges together to seal the dumpling. Repeat until all the dough and filling are used.

4. Bring 8 cups (2 litres) of water to a boil over high heat. Add half the dumplings. Stir them around gently with a ladel, and let the water return to a boil. Add enough cold water to stop the boiling, then bring back to a boil. When the water boils again, add more cold water and bring to a boil at a third time. The dumplings will be done when they float to the surface. Remove, drain well, and serve.