I decided to do another Chinese grandma thing to celebrate my grandson’s full month. Following tradition I dyed eggs red and brought them to my friends. I thought this would be more palatable than the Pig Feet With Black Vinegar and Ginger which I cooked and blogged about a few days ago.
Red is the happy, auspicious Chinese color, and egg, I suppose, celebrates the miracle of birth. The eggs are usually accompanied by pickled ginger.
I don’t know if it’s true but when I was a child I was told that they colored the egg by rubbing the egg in red paper, way back when people actually cut and folded their own red lai see packets from sheets of red paper. Those red sheets stained everything it touched. Today red packets are mass produced. Lai see are red envelops that are filled with money and passed out as gifts.
I used food coloring. It was easy. All I did was soak the hard-boiled eggs in hot water, vinegar and a generous amount of red coloring. Instructions on box of coloring.
Then I drained them well and wiped them dry because I didn’t want color to leak on to anything.
To add interest I also folded little diapers with paper napkins and filled them with apple fritters. Not a Chinese custom, I copied this party idea from a baby shower held for my daughter.
At the shower these diapers were filled with different brands of chocolate bars. As a challenge, we tasted the chocolate to guess what they were–Butterfinger, Kit Kat, Mars, Crunch, Almond Joy or others.
In case you want to know how to fold the diapers here is how I did it. It’s not the way you fold real diapers!
