kuaci

Remember the pumpkin that Ping and friends had carved for Halloween? That wasn't the end of the story to the guts. We removed the pumpkin seeds from the goeey stuff. Then spread it out on a pan that was sprayed with cooking oil, sprinkled some salt on it and bake them. That was the first time Ping learned how to prepare "kuaci". All this while, Ping thought that kuaci is directly removed from the fruit without having to be cooked.

Interestingly, Ping's friends don't remove the 'khak' when eating the kuaci. They eat the entire thing! So why don't we do that? That's easier than having to pek khak and then later have to deal with all the khak falling all over the place right? Or maybe the kuaci that we eat during Chinese New Year is the raw kuaci which is why we can't eat the khak? Hmmm...

This white one is one of Ping's favorite type of kuaci. The other type is the thin and softer shelled one - from sunflower. It's easier to pek but the 'ci' is very small compared to the less one. Chiak liow bo poi.

During CNY, some people like to serve the red and black ones. Until today, Ping never learned to pek those types of kuaci. It's very hard and for some reason, they just don't crack at the right place. Ping usually end up frustrated rather than enjoy eating it. Since Ping haven't been back for CNY the past 5 years, Ping didn't have any photos of kuaci that are commonly served during CNY but here's a site with a picture of the red kuaci.