Tea & Moon-cake Pairing

Last Saturday I joined a Tea & Moon-cake Pairing class run by MingCha. We were introduced 4 types of tea, or I should say 5 if I include the jasmine tea Vivian Mak, MingCha director and our instructor, offered us before the beginning of the lesson as a “palate cleanser”.

We first started with a beautiful demonstration of a jasmine blossom slowly unfurling in hot water making a lovely “Jasmine Tea Martini”.

Jasmine blossoms are made with dried flowers wrapped in tea leaf buds scented with jasmine flowers.

Jasmine Tea Martini

Snowy moon-cakes 冰皮月餅

Mid-autumn festival is around the corner. To be precise it will be celebrated (this year) on Sunday 30 September.  Also called the moon festival this is one of the liveliest fetes in the Chinese calendar. People of all ages go to parks with relatives and friends to view the moon, chat and eat moon-cakes (yuht-bíng月餅), fruits (such as persimmon, pomelo, etc) and other snacks (boiled taro wuh-tauh 芋頭, water caltrops 菱角 lìnhg-gok, etc.)

Water spinach / Ong-choi 蕹菜 + recipe

Water spinach, ong-choi 蕹菜 or tûng-choi (通菜lit. hollow-vegetable) in Cantonese, is plentiful these days at wet markets. With its long, slender, hollow stems and arrowhead-shaped leaves you cannot miss it Water spinach is different than Chinese spinach (amaranth) or yihn-choi 莧菜.



Bunches of water spinach



Hairy Gourd, Mungbean Vermicelli and Dried Shrimps - Recipe

Hairy gourd (or fuzzy melon) is a member of the gwâa family and you should know if you have read my latest posts that gwâas are in season.

Hairy gourd is called jit-gwâa (節瓜 joined-squash) or mòuh-gwâa (毛瓜 hairy- squash) in Cantonese. Its flesh tastes very much like zucchini but with a firmer texture. Its skin is very thin (to peel it just needs to be rubbed with the blunt edge of a knife) and it has a light layer of hair, hence its name: hairy gourd!

Hairy melon / mòuh-gwâa / 毛瓜

Light Radiant Food, black bean burger and more

After walking for 15 minutes in the scorching heat and amid the traffic noise I found an oasis of peace, a cool place, called Light. Why did I choose to visit this place?

I know it is a bit late for writing this post but I really want to record this news as it is very meaningful for me.