Monday, January 26 ushers in the Year of the Ox. With all that’s been happening on the economic and political fronts, seems like Lunar New Year is a bit eclipsed this year. How can the Year of the Ox trump the Dawning of the Obama Era? But perhaps the ox (think water buffalo) -- a beloved patient, work animal in Vietnam -- can lend us its characteristically stable and persevering attitude. Bye bye get-rich-quick schemes a la Bernard Madoff. Hello nose-to-the-grindstone work to patch things up and rebuild.
I thought about various oxen qualities as I experimented with candied lotus seeds earlier this week. Sweetmeats are a must-have at Tet, Vietnamese Lunar New Year. I can’t stand the stuff sold at the markets as they tend to be laden with food coloring and tasteless. As busy as I was this week with an arduous four-day photo shoot for a new cookbook (more on that soon), I carved out time to fiddle with candying lotus seeds, one of my favorite sweetmeats. They’re a little buttery and lightly sweet. A touch of vanilla lends a nice floral note to them.
Recipes from Viet cookbooks suggested soaking the seeds for hours before cooking them and then repeatedly coating in sugar syrup, much as you would for French candied chestnuts (maron glacee). But I have a neat trick for cutting down the cooking time for the seeds.
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