Quay Po Cooks: christmas sauce

Showing posts with label christmas sauce. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2012

Quay Po was very "saucy" yesterday

The meaning of “saucy” is "impertinent in an entertaining way; impossible to repress or control". Will you be surprised if I tell you that President Abraham Lincoln had used the perogative word “saucy” and had written out his true feelings about a lady visitor in a short note to himself? This note now belongs to the Library of Congress. Interesting ha?

My use of the word in today's title is really just a bit word play as I worked in the kitchen making a big batch of cranberry sauce to go with my Quay Lo's roast turkey for Christmas. What lady doesn't enjoy being a little "saucy" now and then even if it only means you made "sauce"?

As promised in my post on our Thanksgiving celebration last month, today I am sharing the simple recipe of my homemade cranberry sauce. Once you taste this homemade cranberry sauce, you will never want a store bought one. It is full of flavor, compliments fowl, lamb, or pork and is super easy to make. Even though I add a citrus note (well, maybe "chord" is a better word than "note") to the preserve this sauce is more simple in flavor than a chutney as it strikes a balance between tart, sour, and sweet. Perfect!

QPC homemade cranberry sauce

Ingredients:

(A)

24 oz bag fresh or frozen cranberries

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp allspice

½ tsp ground nutmeg

2 cinnamon stick

(B)

1 cup orange juice

1 tbs orange zest

1 tbs lemon zest

Method

Place ingredients (A) in a medium pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until most of the liquid has reduced, stirring occasionally. Add in ingrdients (B) and mix well and turn of heat. Let it cool to room temperature. Remove cinnamon stick and serve.

Note: Cranberry sauce can be made days ahead and serve cold or brought to room temperature before serving.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.