recipe: nian gao with coconut

It is getting harder and harder to find homemade nian gao this year, since this time consuming recipe is getting shelved in favor of the sticky treat being poured into plastic containers, instead of being steamed in aromatic banana leaves. 

Since it's still two weeks before Chinese New Year, the nian gao at the market is still fresh and soft, so when you buy it, they put it on a paper plate or some study cardboard to prevent it from collapsing. One of the easiest things to do with nian gao when its still soft like this is to roll it in coconut as a sweet snack.

recipe: fried nian gao (take 2)

More sticky goodness! Here is a second try at making nian gao - slightly different from my first try. This time I did not have any sweet potato, so the brown nian gao stands out a lot more from the taro.

I thought that this attempt looked a lot neater as I tried to keep the nian gao into regular, rectangular shapes, slightly larger than the nian gao itself so that there is less risk of the melting nian gao overflowing (you can still see some seepage though!)

Anyway, any extra/leftover taro can always be fried in batter alone, or sliced thinner and made into taro crisps!

recipes: fried nian gao

Fried nian gao is usually a staple during Chinese New Year. Typically the nian gao is sandwiched between two pieces of taro, but I had some leftover purple sweet potatoes so I thought I would tweak the recipe a little.