So Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Although K doesn’t celebrate it, we have family and friends who do. To all our family and friends who would be traveling during this festive season, we pray you’d have a safe and pleasant journey.

Like other festivities, Chinese New Year comes with the annual ritual of feasting! This is the time you’ll see your Chinese friends going out for those reunion dinners, tossing yee sang, and just having a good time over food.

Now, if you’re one of those who haven’t gotten the chance to try any Chinese New Year delicacies, don’t feel bad. These days, there are halal variations of the snacks and some can even be delivered to your doorstep!

Don’t believe us? Well, read on!

1. Halal Crispy Chicken Floss 香脆鸡肉松

Chicken floss is a dried meat product with a light and fluffy texture similar to coarse cotton, originating from Fujian, China. It also spread to Taiwan. It is used as a topping for many foods, such as congee, tofu, and savory soy milk. It is also used as filling for various buns and pastries, and as a snack food on its own. Very popular food item in Chinese cuisine and Taiwanese cuisine.

• No Preservative added

• No Artificial added

• No Colouring Added

• Made In Malaysia

• Ready To Eat

The product description was taken from brother Ikhwan Ng’s Shoppe. In case you haven’t noticed, he also sells halal bak kwa, halal luncheon meat, lin chi kang, and Yunnan loose leaf green tea. All of those items can be found on his Shoppe and shipped across Malaysia. Not sure about other countries though.

If you’re asking us what’s so good about the crispy chicken floss that you just need to try it? The fact is that it can be eaten with just about anything! Eat it on its own, eat it with your porridge, eat it with your bread! Just don’t do any weird combination like snacking it with durian.

2. All Sorts Of Chinese New Year Cakes, Cookies, Sweets & Candies

We know, we just lumped all the cakes cookies, sweets and candies into one bullet point. But here’s the thing, there’re just so many good ones that we simple can’t choose! What we can do is to list some of the easy to find ones.

• Nian Gao 年糕 – Rice cake, new year cake, kuih bakul, whatever you call it, it’s basically a sticky cake made using glutinous rice flour. The cake is highly versatile in the sense you can eat it on its own or cook it with something else. A favourite of ours is to fry it with yam and sweet potato.

Need the recipe? Here’s a pretty simple variation – Fried Nian Gao (Sticky Rice Cake)

• Love Letters – Traditionally known here as kuih kapit, this particular snack is similar to super thin crepes, crunchy on the outside and inside. We love to snack on these when we were younger and we used to make these by scratch. Takes a bit of skill to fold it into shape though.

Want to try to make yours too? Follow this recipe – Kuih Kapit (Love Letters)

• Peanut Cookies – We love these! Just pop one in your mouth and you can feel it melting away like an ice cube on a hot sunny day. For a small cookie, it’s bursting with peanut flavours. The best ones in our opinion are the mildly sweet ones.

Making these aren’t that difficult really, but eating them is obviously much easier. Click on the link for a quick recipe – Chinese Peanut Cookies

We could list more, like those delectable pineapple tarts, mouthwatering almond cookies, extra crumbly green pea cookies, super crunchy peanut candy and not forgetting those highly addictive ngaku chips, but the list would be never-ending! We can keep those for future posts.

Too busy to make your own? Head on to your nearest supermarket! The ones that we mentioned are pretty easy to find and just about any regular supermarket would have them. Alternatively, you could go to Swee Siang Cake House in Masai, Johor. They stock all of these cookies and more!

3. Fruits & Nuts

What’s so special about fruits and nuts? They’re easy to find and you can snack on them anytime! Another fact that makes them special is on Chinese New Year, nuts and fruits carry auspicious meanings. We won’t go into the details, but we’d like to give you a list of commonly served ones. Maybe you’ve tried them, maybe you haven’t. If you haven’t, then this is the perfect time for you to try.

• Pistachios
• Peanuts
• Sunflower Seeds
• Dried Red Dates
• Dried Longans
• Dried Apricots
• Candied Ginger
• Candied Winter Melon

Most supermarkets would have these items nicely packed in a Chinese New Year-themed box. You could also buy the items individually and serve them in your lazy Susans.

Before we forget, the Chinese New Year snacks we mentioned above also make wonderful gifts for your family and friends who are celebrating Chinese New Year. Which reminds us, we have yet to buy our gifts!

Hope you enjoyed reading the article and happy snacking!