Happy Chinese New Years!! It'salways been a little difficult to celebrate so far away from home, but this year my parents sent me the sweetest care package filled with Chinese goodies and snacks. I was most excited for "Nian Gao" which roughly translates into "Year Cake." It's a glutinous rice cake that I describe as what a brown sugar marshamallow would taste like if it were gooier. Determined to take some time out of my day to celebrate, I invited Janet over to try them. Needless to say, it was a disaster. Hahah is there some bad luck with starting off a new year with total and utter failure? I'm exaggerating a little bit, I only ruined half the batch...my mistake was cutting the nian gao wayyy too thin. They are supposed to be a tiny bit burned (more like browned) on the sides, but since my slices were so thin, the entire thing just ended up looking like bacon:
At least we were able to salvage the rest! We cut the second batch much thicker, and they turned out decently!
Can you tell which one is made correctly?
All in all, nian gao doesn't look the most appetizing even when cooked correctly. But I promise you, they're delicious!
Happy Chinese New Years!
(Apologies for the terrible iPhone quality photos! I don't carry around my DSLR with me all the time!)