Chinese New Year Delicacies: "Tikoy" and "Hopia"

Thanks to the Chinese for the Lunar New Year celebrations that gave way to a long weekend and for the countless delicacies related to the festivities. Two of those are tikoy and hopia, although the latter is more popular among Filipinos during the rest of the year.

Tikoy is a sweet round cake made from glutinous rice. Eating tikoy during the celebrations is considered lucky. The cake can be readily eaten, but many people dip sliced tikoy in beaten eggs and then fry it before serving. Refrigeration is preferable deter ants from partaking of this sweet delicacy.

Plain tikoy is white in color, but it also comes in a wide variety of flavors including buko pandan, strawberry and ube. A variant of this delicacy is the tikoy roll. This pastry has a chewy outside layer with many kinds of filling to choose from.

The packaging for tikoy has also become more sophisticated. As can be seen above, the Ka-Ho brand has a pair of dragons and Chinese characters that presumably mean good fortune. The purple box for the Sweet Cake brand conforms to the purple yam flavor of its content.    

Hopia is originally a bean-filled pastry that might be circular or cubic in shape. Through the years, pastry makers have used other fillings including winter melon paste and ube (purple yam). The successful business of Chinese deli Eng Bee Tin is attributed to its introduction of the ube hopia.