Let me show you some of the CNY dishes we had these 2 days. There are always certain dishes we must have during the chinese new year, even though we can probably have it anytime throughout the year. Reunion dinner is usually just with my immediate family. It is only on the last day of CNY (15th day) that the entire extended family will gather for another round of Chap Goh Mei dinner. See, we Chinese eat and eat.
Last year, we had our reunion at a restaurant where we ordered dishes. This year, we had steamboat at home instead as it has been quite a while since we last had steamboat. Most Chinese families normally have steamboat at their reunion gathering on the eve. I suppose steamboat is the easiest as you can just buy anything you like, cut them into slices or smaller pieces and just throw them into the steamboat and let the ingredients cook, and making the soup stock chockful of flavours at the end of it. Ingredients we had were abalone, tiger prawns, pork slices, pork liver, squid, fish slices, fishballs, crabsticks (for the kids!), fish rolls, veggies. You can even throw in some thin noodles or vermicelli or tang hoon into the soup, as well as crack an egg or two, and you get a really nice bowl of noodles soup with all the sweetness of the ingredients.
Besides steamboat, we also had a few cooked side dishes to go with the meal. We ordered this fantastic roast duck from Joo Chiat. My family prefers roast duck to chicken because of the juicy roasted skin, I suppose. Someone was asking in Twitter why some people buy a duck in whole without cutting, while some prefer to have it cut when we collect it. Well, I guess for those "whole" ducks, they are meant to be offerings for prayers to the ancestors, so it is preferred to be whole and complete. For us, we were just having it for dinner, not prayers, hence we usually request the seller to do it for us. I mean, we're not butchers, right?
This dish is called "Sng". The veggie is called Sng and it is some kind of chive. Stir fried with 3-layer pork, sea cucumber, chinese mushroom, fried beancurd, onions and fatt choy (black moss hair look-alike), it is a nice must-have dish my mom usually cook on new year's eve. This dish is symbolic because Sng in teochew /hokkien means 'to count', and this will ensure we have money to count throughout the year. The black moss hair is called fatt choy and in cantonese, it sounds like fa cai, and it means 'to get rich'.
This is Ngoh Hiang and something which mom will make every year. We usually make many rolls of these for ourselves as well as to give them to our loved ones. It is basically meat rolls with many ingredients all chopped and cut and rolled up with beancurd skin. We fry the rolls as and when you want to eat them and garnish with cucumber or zucchini, plus our homemade spicy sour chilli sauce, it is heaven.
The ingredients for Ngoh Hiang, my mom used pork, some special kind of sticky fish, prawns, carrots, water chestnuts, spring onions, 5-spices powder, corn flour etc.. Then the mixed ingredients were wrapped with a slightly salted beancurd skin, and put to steam for 10 minutes. After they are cooked we can keep and store the rolls in the freezer till you want to eat them. Then you can fry the roll and cut them into smaller pieces like this. Yummy!
On the first day of CNY we usually stay at home as many relatives will visit us, since mom is the eldest. Then on the second day of CNY we usually go visiting a few places and of course my Grandma's place. We have lunch there, and an aunt will always buy the New Year Fish. This fish is usually full of roe and not fishy during the chinese new year period, hence it is a favourite among teochews to buy them and just steam them. It is very nice if dipped into chilli and lime sauce. These fishes did not come cheap, my aunt said it was more than $100 per kg. She got it slightly cheaper at $70 per kg! Still, I think it is damn expensive! But then again it is only eaten once a year, I suppose it's alright?
This is called "Lou Soon" in teochew. I'm not sure what it is called in english. It is basically Braised Soon, a type of crunchy veg which has an unique taste. An aunt bought it from Bangkok (because it is nicer there), and soaked in water for a few days, before it is slowly boiled till it is soft. The crunchy taste remains and my grandma cooks it with chinese mushrooms. This is one of my favourite vegetarian Teochew dish which goes well with porridge or rice and I only get to eat this during CNY.
A colourful dish of stir fried veggies - capsicum, snow peas, broccoli, prawns, cauliflower. It's a must for our family to include lots of veggies in our meals, it's just our habit. I cannot imagine some families just have all meat and only meat dishes without veggies.
Yet another aunt (so nice to have so many aunts!) made this, Minced Pork Balls wrapped with Cabbage. It was very very nice, as it tasted like the Nonya Chap Chye but with meat. The minced pork balls were well marinated and flavourful.
Then another aunt will usually cook this as well, a dry version of Chap Chye, with cabbage, black fungus, fried beancurd skin (hoo kee), tang hoon (transparent rice vermicelli). It is also a dish I like.
There was another dish which this aunt cooked which is my personal favourite, Sesame Pork & Liver. The way she cooked it with wine and sesame oil and soya sauce, the combination of the tastes from the pork and liver was so nice. Maybe it is because I like liver, and it was cooked just right juicy and not too hard.
So, the above was just SOME highlights of the dishes we usually have during CNY. Strangely, this year I didn't have much appetite to eat too much compared to previous years. I only had a little bit of everything. Since last week, mostly I had only one main meal per day, and the rest of the meal were usually oats or milo or one slice of bread or a piece of kueh. I think I've lost appetite because too busy or preoccupied with something else. If this continues, I'm sure I'm going to lose some weight! Haha, great!!
So, what's your favourite CNY dish?
