Chinese New Year's Appetizer
Pastry Shells Filled with Shrimp, Bamboo And Pork
Celebrations are sure to be big this year for the Chinese New Year festivities to mark the beginning of the Year of the Rat. Check out this scrumptious shrimp appetizer.
Starting Feb. 7, 2008, the Year of the Rat begins. This will be a great year to start new things: a job, a new business venture or to get married. Opportunities are there for those who have been preparing.
Apparently, you'll have to be patient and make the most of the smallest opportunities this year.
This is an Earth Rat year and those who belong in this category tend to be realists who are ambitious and charming. Rat people are considered to be enterprising, adaptable and fairly courageous. Be proud to be a Rat!
The Chinese love to party with food and if you're celebrating the dawn of the Chinese New Year try out some of these recipes: Baked Fish, Duck, Pork Dumplings, Steamed Fish , Stir-Fried Pea Shoots, Filipino Fried Noodles and New Year's Cookies.
My mother makes an amazing appetizer, Pie-Tee, filled with bamboo shoots, pork, crabmeat and mushrooms. It's a favourite of the Chua household.
Have a Prosperous and Healthy New Year!
PIE –TEE
Ingredients (Pastry Shell)
To be made before you require them or you can buy them in Safeway and other grocery stores.
- 1 cup flour
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup water ( if shells turn out too thick add a little more water)
- Salt - a pinch or to your taste
- Vegetable oil
To make the shells you require a Pie-Tee mould or you can use a Rosette mould.
Directions
- Sift the flour into a bowl. Make a well in the flour, add egg in the hollow, and gradually blend into the flour, from the sides, adding the water a little at a time, to make a smooth batter.
- Fill a small saucepan with vegetable oil 3/4 full. Heat it well.
- Now put in the Pie-Tee mould (or Rosette mould) and leave it there for 15 minutes to get it properly heated.
- Remove mould from oil. Rub bottom on paper towel or kitchen cloth to get rid of excess oil, then dip the mould gently into the batter 3/4 way up, and place mould in hot oil.
- Hold the handle and do not let the mould touch the bottom of the saucepan.
- As the pastry gets crisp and a little brown, ease it away from the mould with a skewer to remove it from the mould.
- Twirl the shell around with a long chopstick to get it evenly brown, and then remove it to drain on a platter lined with kitchen paper or paper towel. You may have to ease off the pastry shells from the mould for the first few.
- Repeat process till you have as many shells as you require
NOTE: As you make the shells, stir batter once in a while so that the flour does not sink to the bottom of the bowl. As the batter reduces in quantity, pour batter into smaller cup to give it the depth necessary for the mould to dip into. Quantity given in recipe should make 40 to 50 shells.
Ingredients (Filling)
- 3 cups diced bamboo shoot (canned). Wash the bamboo shootsi n cold water and then boil them for about 20 minutes. Cool before dicing
- 4 squares of Taukwa (soya bean cakes)- diced and fried till golden brown
- 1/2 cup diced carrots
- 200 gr finely ground pork
- 200 gr finely chopped fresh prawns/shrimps, fried and set aside
- 4 to 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped, to make 1/2 tsp.
- 1 tbsp Taucheo ( salted soy beans) - finely pounded or use ground Taucheo
- 4 tsp. vegetable oil
- salt & pepper
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/2 cup crab meat ( from a can), fry with prawns.
Directions
- Heat oil in wok/saucepan. Brown chopped garlic, then add taucheo, fry until fragrant, stirring to prevent burning. Add ground pork. Stir well and cover.
- When pork is cooked, add bamboo shoot and carrot, stirring mixture well.
- Add salt and pepper and about 1 1/2 cups of water.
- Cover pan and leave to simmer till most of the liquid has evaporated.
- Stir into the mixture, the fried prawns. Allow to simmer till mixture is just moist with only the oil showing at the bottom of the pan when you push filling to the sides.
- Put aside pan of filling till required.
Ingredients (Chili Sauce)
- 16 fresh red chillies ( seeded for mild flavour)
- 6 slices fresh ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3/4 cup white vinegar
- 1/3 cup sugar ( more or less to taste)
- Salt to taste
Directions
- Pound/grind not too finely, chilies, ginger and garlic.
- Mix in a saucepan, the ground ingredients, vinegar, sugar & salt, to taste.
- Then bring this mixture to the boil, allowing it to boil fro a few minutes.
- Cool and pour into a glass bottle and put aside till you need the chili sauce to put on top of the Pie-Tee.
- For garnishing you need chopped coriander leaves.
To Serve: About a 1/2 hour before your guests arrive, put the filling in the shells and serve with a small dollop of chili sauce on top or allow your guests to do so.
