JASIN: It’s a family affair for the Chong family to pick one day where most family members are around to make crispy rice biscuits together, a snack for Chinese New Year known as “Mi Pang” in Hokkien dialect or “Mi Chang” in Hakka dialect.

Chong Ah Kow @ Niang Swee, 70, wife Lo Yat Moy, 68, Chong’s sister and brother-in-law, Chong’s brother and sister-in-law as well as the nieces were involved to make the crispy biscuits manually in preparation for Chinese New Year.

Besides the presence of family members, a family friend identified as Tai is another important person to be around as she is an expert in cooking the syrup – sugar with lime for the rice biscuits.

“One needs to control the fire on the stove well to cook the sugar with lime so that the puffed rice sticks well and the rice biscuits are not too sweet,” said Chong, from a Chinese new village in Kampung Bukit Gadong, Jasin.

The family bought 10 kg of puffed rice, sugar, peanut, sesame seeds and lime to make the rice biscuits this year, an additional of 2 kg as they ended up distributing the snacks to friends and family members but not themselves.

The syrup is mixed with the puffed rice, and then the ingredients are placed on a rectangular tray.

One needs to press the puffed rice for it to be in a rectangular shape before cutting it into pieces.

The rice biscuits are packed in plastic bags for distribution to friends.

They made a total of 160 packets of rice biscuits with 10 kg of puffed rice. Each packet has 12 pieces of rice biscuits.

Chong said he used to make rice cake or nian gao for Chinese New Year, but this year he has opted to make rice biscuits due to declining demand for nian gao and the long process of making it.