It is the time of the year again. I always look forward to this. Mid-autumn festival, the night of lanterns and mooncakes. It always fall on the 15th night of the 8th lunar month. I won't go into details of origins and what-nots.
Way before the actual date arrives, mooncakes in various shapes and flavours start to enter the consumer market. There are now out-of-this-world flavours like blackcurrent and cheese, green tea melon, dragon fruit, lychee, amongst the many that the flood the market. No matter how crazy the flavours and colours come and go, the originals remain. Lotus paste (with and without yolk), green beans, red beans and mix nuts (a.k.a 5 nuts) (with or without bacon).
I did not take a liking to mixed nuts as I need to really chew on it and it can be quite sweet and sticky. It has been known as "elderly mooncake" as there are a dearth of younger generation savouring this nutty concoction. I was one of the younger generation, but now, my liking has changed. Oh no, not that I am elderly but it is a certain mooncake that steered my liking to this.
Recently I was given such a mixed nuts with bacon. It is not any of the famous mooncakes or from any well-known bakery. It was from Batu Arang, a small coal making town in Malaysia. The packaging was simple, though a lot fancier than the olden days of card box. It is still a card box anyway.
Eagerly, I cut open the mooncake. The nuts mixture with crytalised winter melon and melon seeds smiled at me. The traditional nuts ingredients amongst others are walnuts, almond (h'ang-yan), olive kernels (lum-yan), melon seeds, sasame seeds and crystalised winter melon.
The hindsight of eating this is that it sticks to my teeth, especially on the molars. Never fail have I got to vigorously brush my teeth after a bite of this. However, over the last two years which I have learned to enjoy this, never have I regret biting into this little "pastry".
Many a time I told myself I would love to bake my own mooncake, but looking at the recipe (courtesy of Amy Beh) it is just too much trouble.
I think it is time to have my break now, a visit to the FayFoong mooncake shop should be able to satisfy my craving. Yes, this is the only mixed nuts mooncake I take, not that I am publicising for FayFoong.
Enjoy..
