Happy Mid Autumn

Today is 八月十三  in our Lunar calendar! Two more days will be 八月十五 ( 19/9 ), it is Mid Autumn Festival!!! Yeah... time for kids to play lanterns & candles. It's also a special day for families & friends to gather up.

Normally, we just had a small gathering with neighbours or friends outside the house with mooncakes & others while admire the full moon. Kids will have fun with their burning candles not lanterns!!! Haha...

What you guys did for this year Mooncake Festival? This year I'm feeling super lazy not to do any mooncakes but I wanted to try to cook lotus paste. Haha..So I decided to make traditional mooncake if my lotus paste is success! Yeah... I did it!!!!!  I just tried 300g of lotus seeds.  It turns out great & taste yummy. Not too sweet.... ngam ngam ho.... heehee.

I searched few recipes from books & online. Their recipes are almost the same. But I decided not to follow. Luckily it success!

Here's my mix & match recipe :

• 300g lotus seeds
• 1 tsp alkaline water
• 230g sugar
• 230g groundnut oil
• 1 tbsp maltose

1. Put lotus seeds into a pot of water. Bring to boil. Add in alkaline water & boil for 5 minutes. Remove lotus seeds & place ibto cold water. Rub-off skins & discard stems.

2. Cook the cleaned lotus seeds with sufficient water. Boil till lotus seeds have softened. It needs more 30 minutes. Strain & blend into paste while hot. 

3. Heat up wok ( don't use non-stick wok). Melt 30g sugar into caramel till golden with low heat. Turn off heat. Add in lotus paste. Mix well & turn on heat to medium low. Keep stirring & add in the remaining sugar.

4. Stir paste till almost dry. Add in 1/3 oil & keep stirring until even. Then add in another 1/3 oil & so on for the last portion of oil. Keep stirring until paste boil ( it takes less then 3 minutes), add in maltose. Stir non-stop until paste starts to leave the sides of wok. It should be ready. Dish up to cool well. Don't leave it in the hot wok!!!!

Here, I wish everyone 中秋节快乐!!!