CNY Snack Attack

I can still blog about Chinese New Year because technically it is still Chinese New Year. As we know, CNY is all about snacks. And the King of them all has to be the Mandarin! As you drive down the street you see on the side of the road stacks and stacks of boxes of mandarins for sale, stretching on for 500 metres.

If mandarins are the King, then Ngaku chips must be the queen (though they don't seem very feminine to me). More on those tasty bastards later though...

Around my house you'll find a whole bunch of traditional CNY snacks, including:

 Crispy thin coconut crepe thingys

Prawn crackers

Bah gua dried, fried meat (I don't like)

 Billions and billions of sugary drinks

But back to Ngaku chips. I have a little story about these little deamons, which I have a love/hate relationship with. I'm sure most of my Malaysian readers will know what ngaku is, but I never did until I came here this trip.

Ngaku, also know in the Tesco catalog as Arrowhead, is a root vegetable which grows in water. It kinda looks like a potato-y onion, the bulb being harder potato texture, but the shape of an onion with a sprout at the top.

During Chinese New Year preparations I saw these weird random vegetables in the kitchen, and learnt that we would be making fried chips with them. I've seen people eating the chips, but I thought they were just potato. After preparing and frying the sliced ngaku you will be introduced to a delicious, moreish, slightly sweet, very crunchy chip which once you start eating you cant stop! I also had a lot of fun learning to make them with my family, we made a few huge batches.

So why do I hate them so much if I love them so much? 

As I said, they are irrisistable, they really are one of those foods that once you start snacking on you cant stop. But that isn't the problem, I love being greedy and enjoying the foods I love. Unfortunately I later found out (the hard way) that if you eat too many you can get 'sick'. For ngaku are considered, as the Malaysians say, a heaty food. If you eat too much I guess it supposedly raises your body temperature or something? (durian is supposed to also be a heaty food, so same I guess)

But no one told me this until after I spent the day before Chinese New Year pigging out on them! I just couldn't stop; every time I walked past the kitchen I had to grab a few. And lets just say I walked past the kitchen a lot...

Chinese New Year morning I woke up feeling yucky and dehydrated, and the feeling continued into the day after. I didn't know why, as I do drink a lot of water, I just figured I didn't sleep enough (with all the fireworking hehe). A few days later my friends told me about the heatyness of ngaku, now I get it. I vowed to stop eating so many!

Until a few days later when my cravings overcame my ngaku-resentment. When everyone came to our house to gamble for the night I was picking at the ngaku chips once again, despite my friends warnings. All topped off with some nice sugary drinks. Later that night I kept waking up during my sleep, I felt soooooo hot and sweaty and itchy like I had a fever or something. I threw the blankets off but had a hard time falling and staying asleep, and then I heard the mosquitos buzzing around my poor exposed flesh, enjoying the buffet. Back under the blanket! As I lay there I cursed ngaku, and vowed never to eat the evil things again.

In the morning as I got up and walked to the bathroom something at the window caught my eye. 
...
Some idiot had left the window open (behind the blinds) all night!
I hadnt been sick, I was just boiling hot and sweaty because the air con had been going straight out the window, and the hot air and mosquitos coming inside! I was so angry, one long suffering night all because the window was left open (don't say i'm a pussy coz I can't sleep without aircon ok!).
So it wasn't the ngaku's fault, but I have been a little emotionally scarred. I think i'll be able to control my cravings a little more after all that.

Wanna make these delicious ngaku chips yourself? I don't recommend it, because then you won't be able to stop eating them and you'll blame me and curse my blog when you get sick, but this is how you do it.

1. Cut off the top and bottom of the ngaku. Peel the outside skin off using a peeler.
2. Slice thinly using a slidey plastic slicer.
3. Deep fry in oil until potato-chip colour and crispy. Drain oil on paper.

I wonder if I can find ngaku in Melbourne, or if i should even try...