CNY Reunion Dinner

Chinese Reunion Dinner is for family gathering and those who are abroad or stays out from the main house, will normally go back and for dinner on CNY eve. This is a big occasion as everyone will be back.

At my parent's place, in Klang, we have a simple meal of steamboat. I didnt snap picture of all the dishes as there were too many of them. This much food is good as the Chinese believes the abundance of food will over flow to the new year. Since most of the item are made of fish paste, we does follows the tradition of leaving some food thus ensuring of the phase 年年有魚/餘 nián nián you yú thats signify be blessed every year. Some said it signify prosperity year in year out.

We had 2 pots - 1 of simple clear soup made from boiling of ikan bilis and chinese cabbage. The other is tom yam which I sort of modified for my younger sis since she loves tom yam. Cant remember the brand for the paste that she bought. Its nice though, the paste, I meant.All I did was get some lemongrass ( white part only ), onion quartered, kaffir lime leaves, chilli padi and lime juice. I sauteed the lemongrass and onion with the chilli padi before adding the clear soup into them. Bring to a boil and add in the kaffir lime leave. Boil for 30 minutes and adjust seasoning and lime juice. Oops! I forgetten about the quartered tomatoes to add in some sourness and sweetness as well.

We are ready for our reunion dinner lunch.















The tom yam boiling in a wok before transfering to the hot pot.















The main table where my parent sits. The dishes are behind us. We have 3 types of vegetables - chinese spinach, chinese lettuce and "Tong Hou" no idea what they are called in English. Besides that, the steamboat item that my sis bought was like about 12 items not including the beef, salmon, 2 types of sausages, promfret, prawns and god knows what else. Usually Chinese will include all the prayer's offering of steamed poached / boiled chicken, "fatt choy" a type of seamoss vegetarian dish, etc in their reunion dinner. We had to keep those dishes in the chiller to be consume later as there were too much food liao.

Finish lunch at about 1400 hours Malaysian Time ( +8 GMT ). The usual exchange of ang pau and auspicious wishes. My niece Elena now 3yrs old, suddenly jump up and called me.

"Ku Ku" ( Uncle on the mum side ) Happy New Year. My ang pau? Gave her one and then she looked around and said. "Ku Ku" give me already. Kung Kung and Poh Poh never give yet. Mummy and Daddy leh. Turn to my wife and asked from my wife too. Kim Kim never give mei mei ar ?

I laughed till my tummy ache.She's sweet.

From there , me wife and meself, proceed to Bentong for another reunion and this time dinner in my PIL's place. Reached there at abuot 1630 hours with all the slow crawling traffic East Bound. Relax for 30 minutes and then my FIL asked to prepare the mise en place for dinner. In my heart i was thinking, at 5pm? Isnt that a little too early. What to do, just prepare as per instruction - chuckle.

Believe it or not, the reunion dinner starts at 1830 hours. My god, my poor stomach is still digesting the lunch. FIL cooked his specialty dish - Sweet and Sour Prawn. It was delish and a change from the usual sweet and sour prawn that we normally had.

Ginger - pound about 50gm
Shallot - pound about 100 gm
Garlic - pound - 3 cloves
Tomato Ketchup - to taste
Chilli Sauce - to taste
Oyster sauce - to taste
Chopped Chilli - to taste ( he uses 6 chilli padi )
White Pepper Powder - to taste
Water - depending on how much sauce you wanted

Pre fried the prawn till half cook. Sauteed the shallot till fragrant. Add in the ginger,chilli and garlic. Sauteed till fragrant. Now dump in the tomato ketchup, chilli sauce and oyster sauce.Mixed well. Add in the prawn and stir till prawn are well coated. Add water to desired amount of sauce.Adjust seasoning. Served hot.


















Delish ? It is....


















This is the Loh Hon Chai a vegetarian dish with fermented beancurd - Nam Yee.















Above are the ingredients used to cook the dish. Firstly, take 2 pieces of fermented beancurd - Nam Yee - the reddish looking type and mixed well with water. Soaked the Woodear, dried golden needle mushroom and ,beancurd skin in some water. No hot water please. Soak them till are soft and tender.

Then par boiled cauliflower and snowpea.

Once all are ready,here it means all ingredient are cut up, soaked and par boiled, sauteed the cauliflower and snowpea with some vegetable oil. My mum in law used olive oil. Add in the canned button mushroom, woodear, beancurd skin, dried golden needle mushroom and glass noodle. Stir well. Dump in the Nam Yee mixture and bring to a boil. Adjust seasoning. Reduced to desired thickness consistency. Served hot.

MIL also boiled some "Kudzu - Phan Kok" soup. I had posted this before here. Delish charcoal boiled stewed soup.






























This is half the chicken debone by me except for the one piece of drumstick that my MIL had chopped earlier.
















The above is my MIL's family recipe dip. It consists of chopped coriander, cubed ginger ( abt 1-1 1 1/2 mm ), garlic chopped, bean paste and a kind of ginger that Chinese called "Sar Kiong" litetarary "Sand Ginger". Dont know what you called them in English and did a search and couldnt even come close to it. Might snap a picture of the plant later and see if anyone can help me with the English Name. Oops! I diversed.

Sauteed the ginger,garlic till fragrant. Add in the bean paste. Dump in the coriander and sand ginger. Mixed well and served. Best to go along for poached chicken.

















This is what the Chinese called "Seng Pan" or Star Garoupa. Think the "gwai-loh" ( cantonese - roughly translates to "ghost" or "devil" man - it is
slang for a caucasian person . No offence meant) called it Greasy Grouper. Not sure whether its correct but who cares. As long as its fresh and you will just need to steamed it. About 7 minutes as this fish is about 1.2kg. Steaming time depends onhow you cut your fish. For me, I uses the restaurant style of cutting ,one side from the dorsal fin down towards the bone and the other side from the pelvic fins right up to the anal fin and upwards. This way, your fish will stand firm on the platter and easier to cook. Err..... might need to cut up some fish and snap a few pic for every step. That will be later when I do cut up a fish.

Topped with sesame seed and soy sauce mixture. Some coriander and slivers of spring onion.

Voila! Our reunion dinner is served. Again, we did not finish the fish to ensure the
年年有魚/餘 nián nián you yú.

Cheers !