Chinese New Year Candy
If you visited your local Asian grocery store these past few weeks, you were probably treated to a section full of red decorations and various Chinese New Year treats.
I can't help but stop at the colorful display section, and even though no one in my family really likes the overly sweet chinese new year candies, I always get a box. This year I chose a small one since I'm about the only one in my family that will nibble on these treats.
Chinese New Year candy usually consists of heavily sugar coated dried fruits and vegetables. You'll usually find sugared yam, ginger, lotus root, kumquats, coconut, winter melon, water chestnuts, just to name a few. Some other treats you will usually see in the display are ready made Chinese New Year Cake (Nian gao), dried whole persimmons, and peanut cluster candies.
A lot of the times, the candies are put in a display tray like the one pictured. This was the smallest tray that Ranch 99 had to offer. The bigger the tray, the more items included. Usually I'll buy a small tray, and then maybe buy a small bag of the items I like that are missing and add them to the tray.
My favorite treat is definitely the winter melon. It's crunchy, and inside it tastes cold and watery. A very refreshing taste and you can see where the winter melon gets its name when you bite into these candies. I also like the lotus roots, yams, and water chestnuts.
In my tray, I have colorful shredded coconut, candied ginger (the light yellow one), candied winter melon (the white block/sticks), candied kumquats (orange wrappers), and the middle section are soursop gummy candy.
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sawyer — February 13, 2010 @ 12:36 am
this post is so awsome!!!! i love the way you write. but what is soursop?
Kirbie — February 13, 2010 @ 9:05 am
I’m happy you liked my post. Soursop is a type of fruit. I’ve never had the pleasure of tasting the fruit by itself, but the candy is a bit sour tasting. You can see pics of a raw soursop at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soursop
Chinese New Year Candy | Online REL — November 4, 2010 @ 5:18 am
[...] but stop at the colorful display section, … Continue reading → Continue reading here: Chinese New Year CandyKirbie’s Cravings » Chinese New Year [...]