Chinese New Year Eve FEAST! Year of the Ox

I think my Mum has outdone herself this year! The poor woman has been preparing 2 days for our CNYE Feast. And to make things more difficult, my cousin insisted on buying us a Lobster to contribute towards the dinner. As nice as that was, it just meant an extra dish for my Mummy to cook. But damnnnnnnnnn it was good!!

Our $180 Lobster monster being sized up

Please don't eat me...!

But you're too delicious!

We turned the huge Lobster into a tray of Stir Fried Lobster with ginger and shallot sauce sitting on a bed of e-noodles. We made sure it was extra saucy so the noodles could soak it all up. No one ate any rice tonight, only the noodles.

2 Dozen oysters

HUGE Jumbo oysters steamed with XO sauce on a bed of vermicelli

Salmon and Tuna Sashimi

The fish mongers at the markets really took advantage of the double holiday whammy this year. Oz day and CNY meant everyone was out to get seafood. The tuna sashimi price got jacked up to $80/kg?!

Nin Nin Yow Yu - Steamed whole Barramundi with ginger and shallots

Lettuce - To Signify growth of wealth

Whole roasted duck

Ham-less and chicken roll

For a bit of a twist to celebrate CNY, we replaced the ham in a ham and chicken roll with a whole Chinese sausage.

Fat Choi Ho Soi

This was a slow braised dish of pork trotters and tongue, mushroom, black hair moss and dried oysters. This is a must have dish to signify fortune and good luck.

What's the hidden surprise?

Flipped upside down...

Another slow braised dish of Roast pork, sea cucumber, chestnuts, mushrooms, dried oyster and dried scallops.

Whole white boiled chicken

Tong Yuen - Glutinous Rice Balls in soup

Part of the feast

We couldn't actually fit all the dishes onto the lazy susan. Nor could I fit the whole thing in the photo without me having to climb onto the kitchen bench. Oh, there was one other dish which we had forgotten about until everyone was full. Total of 13 dishes! To say I was stuffed like a Turkey was an understatement!

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! May the year of the Ox bring you love, happiness, prosperity and good health!

Our Xmas feast

For the last few years, we've had a massive xmas. This year is no exception with a total of 121 presents under the tree!! That's right, 121!!! It took me a good hour to stack everything under the tree. All my years playing tetris finally paid off.

The littles ones giving me a hug to thank me for all the presents I got them!

All of my nephews and neices have figured out that I am Santa. I guess they can consider me that as I buy about half of the presents under the tree. I also hide all the presents until they're asleep xmas even before I bring them out and stack them under the tree. They love waking up and running up to the tree to see how many presents are stacked under it.

So what did I get this year? I actually got stuff I love!! Firstly, I got the new Canon 980 IS IXUS camera. 14.7 mega pixels of goodness! The new Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food cook book and a new Takoyaki pan! Woohoo!!

Oh YEahhhhhhh

My neice also used up their entire fortune of $40 to buy me a butterfly necklace. When my sister offered to give her extra money to buy the xmas present, she insisted that she wanted to pay for the whole with her own money. She also made me various jewellery boxes as well. What I didn't know was that on the day I came home with a new pair of dangly earrings from Prouds I bought for my neice, was the same day she went to Prouds to get my xmas present. She was so grateful and shocked that I bought her something from Prouds (which in her eyes, costs her entire fortune), that the next day, she dragged my sister to the nearest florist to buy me a bunch of flowers. Awwwwww!!!

Once all the presents were unwrapped, it was time to get the party started. We fired up all the BBQs, yes, BBQs. We had 3 BBQs going. One BBQ had 2 hot plates and a grill. We borrowed the specially made satay BBQ stove I got for my brother in law last year as a xmas present and I bought a mini weber like one to make my BBQ Pork.

Here are the none meat dishes:

My special tabouli

My extra light coleslaw

My sister's potato salad

Mum's singapore noodles

My bean salad that makes you go toot toot!

Dad's home made nem nuong

I couldn't get a decent shot of this as people were eating them faster than we were cooking them. The tray barely makes it to the table with people grabbing a few sticks as the tray goes past them.

Vietnamese and pork sausages

This is what happens when you let the guys man the BBQ. We also had quails, steaks, pork chops, lamb chops, chicken wings and ham and pineapple skewers. I didn't get photos of that since I was too busy eating and manning my own special BBQ. Besides, people were walking right up to the BBQ and grabbing the food straight off it!

My BBQ Pork

I bought a mini weber like BBQ with the domed lid so I could roast some BBQ Pork for the day. Lets just say, this got the double thumbs up from my parents! We basically used to make our own BBQ pork for the restaurant, so if they approve, it means its good enough to sell in a restaurant! haha

All sliced up

My secret punch

Chocolate cake ice cream sandwich

Wild Japanese Strawberries

The kids were basically raiding my strawberry plants in between bites! Although tiny, these strawberries pack and intense punch in flavour. Savour one at a time. MMmMMmmm

The rest of the day was spent playing Wii, singing Karaoke, eating leftovers, snacking and drinking. Lets just say, a few people ended up passed out on the floor and we left them there til the next morning......

BBS...

December is my yearly MIA month. The kids are here for xmas, so I've been kicked out of my room....AGAIN. Atleast this year I've got my dad a new PC so I can use that to treat my internet addiction. (And hopefully update my blog!) The rest of the family arrives later in the month, so the house is only going to get more crowded with more people and more screaming kids.

Xmas is around the corner, and I'm starting to go a bit crazy with the stuff I've been buying for xmas presents. Every few days I'm getting things posted to my work. Today I showed up and I had 2 packages sitting on my desk. 45mins later, I got another hugeeeeee box of stuff delivered to my work. I've also got bags of stuff I've bought over the past 3 weeks, which I haven't taken home yet. I'm 2 packages away from needing a forklift to get these presents home!

Homemade BBQ Pork (CHAR SIU!)

Its been a good 6 or so years since my parents have sold the restaurant. And for the last few months, I've really been missing our "restaurant life". I've also started my own recipes book (Yes I know I don't follow recipes). But its not really a recipe book of stuff I usually cook, its a compilation of recipes our family cooks. Specifically the comfort food my mum dishes out, and our secret recipes for some dishes we used to serve in the restaurant.

I know some dishes will never ever taste the same as they did when we cooked in the restaurant. Partly because we can't get the same ingredients again unless we buy wholesale, we're also more conscious of using MSG, oil, salt etc. But its also because the food always taste better in our memories. And unless I go back in time, I'm going to have to settle for my inferior replicas of our favourite dishes.

One of my favourite memories would be BBQ Pork (Char Siu) day. Every Saturday, my parents would make up a few kilos of BBQ Pork which we use in many of our dishes. And every now and then, my parents will call us about 30mins before the BBQ Pork is ready, to come to the restaurant for lunch. So we'd hop into the car and drive 10mins to the restaurant and sit there waiting for the final basting on the BBQ Pork.

When the pork finally comes out of the oven, dripping with the sweet caramelised basting, we'd elbow each other out of the way to get the pork with a pair of scissors each. Why? We were both after the best bits. What's the best bits? It would be the end bits where the meat, where the honey has caramelised it until the was slightly charred and crunchy. Armed with a pair of scissors each, we would pick up every chunk of BBQ pork, and snip the ends off onto our plate of steaming hot rice. We'd load up our plates with the best bits of BBQ pork, drizzle over a little of the juice that we caught in the pan during the roasting process and add a little soy. We load up the plate with plain boiled vegetables so we could taste the juicy BBQ pork.

The restaurant is gone, and my brother is living overseas. We also don't have a gas oven anymore to give it that extra charred flavour. But when I was visiting Singapore and I made BBQ Pork with my nephews and niece, I taught them what was the "best bit". Suddenly, I had someone to fight with me over the best end bits. Food always taste better when you need to fight for it. ;) With that memory in mind, I decided it was time to actually try out the recipes I've been collecting. First up, BBQ Pork:



It certainly doesn't look like what we used to serve in the restaurant. Mind you, I didn't add any colouring at all, which is what all restaurants used. Plus, my one was baked in an oven rather than dangled over flames like we used to. But I think its an alright effort for my real first attempt. I would definitely make it more charred next time, but I kind of forgot about my pork and didn't want to grill it anymore in case I overcooked it. But in fact, it was perfectly cooked and sooooooo tender and juicy! Marinating it for 24hrs really did the trick ;) I can't wait to try it again!

Day 9 - The accident

We're up at 7am, and out the door by 8:30am. The plan was to find the first restaurant we see and grab breakfast there before heading to the Notre Dame church. Unfortunately, theres nothing open, and the few places I did find open, the 2 girls didn't think their bowels could take the risk. So there goes my idea of squatting on the street and eating.

We get to the Notre Dame church and take a few photos:



We head back to the hotel, in order to find food. Thankfully we walk past a Pho24 before we pass out from hunger.

Pho Duc Biet - Combination Beef Noodle soup

Ice soya bean and avocado shake

We get back to the hotel and relax a bit before we realise that we never ate the watermelon my sister bought. So she whips out her trusty chopping board and knife and starts hacking away. So imagine 3 chicks crowded around a bathroom sink, shoving a whole watermelon down their throat, 15mins before checkout.

Completely stuffed, we grab our bags and head off to the hotel.

The flight back wasn't too bad. We get home around 6pm and we're starving. After a quick shower, we all head off to a local hawker centre for dinner. The hawker centre is next to a playground. So whilst we let the kids run wild, the adults start ordering the food:

Sugar cane and lime juice

Hainese Chicken Rice

Boneless chicken feet

Chicken congee

Rojak

Satay chicken sticks

Laksa

After dinner, we go to the local bakery and load up on freshly made bread and buns for breakfast tomorrow. The traffic is atrocious and at a complete standstill. We wait at a park around the corner whilst my brother in law gets the car.

The kids are having great fun on the monkey bars whilst I stand there chatting with my sister, when next thing you know, my niece is on the floor. She had leaped up to try and grab the monkey bars and missed. She basically landed hands first onto the ground. She's screaming and crying like I've never seen before. My sister tries to calm her down as my brother in law pulls up. We jump into the car, and my niece is still screaming and crying the whole way back. I know she can sometimes be a drama queen, but we've never seen her behave this way before.

We get my brother in law to drop us off at the local medical centre and get her checked out by the doctor. The doctor suspects she's got a fracture in her wrist and probably sprained her other wrist and both elbows. He recommends that we go to a hospital and get it x-rayed. Meanwhile, my niece is in incredible pain. The doctor tried to find a sling to put her arm in, but would you believe that a medical centre doesn't have a sling? I ended up using my cardigan and turning it into a makeshift sling for my niece.

We drive straight to the hospital where it was a massive wait. It took us close to 2 hours before they would even see my niece (Even though 15people who arrived AFTER us got attended to first). And only because one of the other mothers saw my niece in so much pain that she went and begged one of the nurses for us. We finally get to see the doctor, and it took him less than 5 mins to send us to the x-ray department. And it was only then that they gave her any pain killers.

We get the x-ray done and then its another 30min wait for the doctor to check the x-ray. Unfortunately, she does have a fracture in her wrist. Luckily, its only a hairline fracture and won't require putting her arm in a cast. We go out and wait another 15mins to get her arm bandaged up and put into a sling before we're sent home. The whole process took over 3hrs and we didn't get home until about midnight. The bad thing is, its her first day back at school tomorrow. :(

The Chinese New Year Eve feast

Happy Chinese New Year!!! I've finally recovered from my food induced coma. This tends to happen every CNY Eve for our traditional family reunion dinner. So after my mum's 3 days of food preparation, here's what was on the menu:

My contribution: Filo spring rolls

Supposedly the spring rolls are supposed to look like gold bars which represents prosperity. The real reason I made it? Kids love spring rolls. And the reason I made it with filo pastry is because in the mad rush of cooking, my mum wasn't about to give me access to the stove!

Tong Yuen - Glutinous Rice Balls in soup

Tong Yuen basically sounds like reunion. Which is to signify family reunion which is the whole point of this dinner! hehe This soup gets soooooooo much better over night, not because the flavour comes out, but because we add a whole heap of leftovers to the soup to make it taste better!

Steamed Fish

Stir fried mussels

Steamed baby abalone

Steamed scallop in shell with XO vermicelli

Deep fried ham and chicken roll

Mushroom and lettuce with dried scallop sauce

Lettuce is something we must also have for CNY as it can mean either lively, or rising wealth.

Mushrooms, dried oysters, pork knuckle and black hair moss

Prawns

Dried oysters and fish stomach stew

Whole steamed chicken

Roast duck

The spread!