It’s the third day of the Lunar New Year – back to work for me! I hope you all had a great celebration.
Several years ago, I was taught to make a Hakka dish – Abacus Seeds (or 算盘子 in Chinese). I’m not Hakka; Skye is. Therefore, Abacus Seeds is a must-have dish every time we celebrate the Lunar New Year.
Last year, I had wanted to do up a blog post on how Abacus Seeds are made, but I didn’t manage to get around to doing it. So this blog post is a year overdue!
This dish has an auspicious meaning – resembling beads on an abacus, Abacus Seeds signify abundance of wealth.
Alrighty, so, to make this dish, you will need:
- Yam
- Tapioca starch
- Water
- Cooking oil
- Diced garlic
- Diced mushrooms
- Black fungus
- Minced meat
- Pepper
- Salt
- Sugar
- Light soy sauce
- Fish sauce
For every kg of yam, you need 500g of tapioca starch.
Step 1: Peel and slice yam.
Step 2: Steam yam for about 15 to 20 minutes, until texture becomes soft. For some reason, this year we had to steam the yam for about 40 minutes before it turned soft. I guess the timing varies; just keep monitoring!
Step 3: Mash yam into a fine paste while it’s still hot.
Step 4: Add tapioca starch to yam paste (remember – 500g of tapioca starch for every kg of yam), together with some water, and mix well. You probably need a couple of cups of water, depending on how thick the mixture is.
Step 5: Knead mixture into a dough. The dough should be soft and smooth, and not sticky.
Step 6: Break off a small amount of dough (about the size of a small coin), roll it into a ball, and gently make indentations in its center by pressing it between your thumb and index fingers. There, we have our abacus seed. Repeat! We used to take hours to make all of them because we sort of make them for lots of relatives. There was a year we stayed up until 5am just to finish making these abacus seeds.
Step 7: Prepare a wok of boiling water. Put abacus seeds in boiling water. Remove them from the wok only after they float to the surface.
Step 8: Add a small amount of oil to the cooked abacus seeds so that they don’t stick to one another. This is especially important if you wish to freeze them for storage.
Step 9: Cook ‘em! Stir-fry garlic in cooking oil. Add diced mushrooms, black fungus, minced meat to abacus seeds. Add pepper, salt, sugar, light soy sauce and fish sauce to taste. Keep frying until everything is thoroughly cooked.
And we’re done!
I’m so happy I learnt about this dish. Every year, Skye and I help to knead and shape these abacus seeds; it’s hard work, but it’s a pretty satisfying sight. Haha! Keeping up with the tradition, they say.
Is there a particular dish your family enjoys every Lunar New Year?
J
This is something new to me! Looks good…!! :)
Question, if i were to make this… can i substitute the mince meat with say minced chicken instead?
Hi Joy! Yes, minced chicken works too. :) Do share pics if you cook this!
I shouldn’t read this post in the late night like this because it really makes me hungry :D it also make me recall the time of disorder which I got during the Lunar New Year…he he. At that time, my mom got sick and I had to arrange the stuffs and food instead of her…It was very difficult for me to do something like this. I was always away from kitchen and never pay attention to cooking but finally I could pass it (I have to thank the local supermarket…ha ha there was almost everything we wanted)
Jade, you are so great! to cook it by yourself:) I ‘ve never eaten something like this before because I ‘m not Hakka and there ‘re a few Hakka in my country…very hard to find Hakka food…but I ‘m quite familiar with other kind of Chinese food because my parents are Chinese descendants and I guess you too. My mom is very good at cooking she can cook both Thai and Chinese food :)
I’m so sorry to learn about what happened to you over Lunar New Year, Ratta! I hope Aunty is ok now and everything is back to normal? You’re awesome, managing all that by yourself!
Haha, I didn’t make the entire dish by myself; there’s always two other people and we will all do the steps together. Many hands make light work! :) I LOVE Thai food!!!!! Especially Tom Yam, Pad Thai, Pineapple Rice.
Oh Jade! it was just a funny story…my mom got sick at that time because of excessive exercise. She felt vey ashamed (She always think that she is the strongest person in family) However, my dad and I still tease her up to now…ha ha
Now she is O.K. and become excercise junkie as she used to be ;)…Thanks, but I ‘m not great enough, I did a lot of mistake! Even if I think it ‘s the good experience, I really hope it won’t happen next year ;) I hate fishy smell so much…awww
Wow! cooking with many people is a fun activity:) I just have the dinner with my family and one of the menu list is avsolutely Tom Yum!
Ah I see! That’s a funny episode. :) I’m glad she’s back to normal now! :)