Chinese New Year (CNY) 2011

Happy Lunar New Year! It was 初一 (1st day of the lunar month) yesterday so I video-called home to see how everyone's doing. Skyped briefly over the internet with my family and relatives while they were at my uncle's place. It made me miss the CNY atmosphere so much and I really wished I was right there with them! What with all the big feasts and CNY goodies and gambling and dolling up and catching up. My aunt actually asked me to promise I'll return to Singapore for CNY next yr. Sweet.

Something I find even sweeter is on the morning of 除夕, I woke up to an email notification and was greeted by this:

祝妳们：HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

   红包 for you: $388

sent by dad! Touché....

Nonetheless, all was not lost because of our 2 great friends in Paris - Anne & Roger, without whom we wouldn't have had such a fabulous & cozy reunion dinner! We had 盆菜 (pot of braised food bearing auspicious meaning) for starter, steamboat for mains, and almond jelly with lychee (instead of longan) for desserts. Yums. Not forgetting the 4 bottles of wine - 2 champagne 2 red - we emptied. Felt just like how a reunion dinner should be :)

Anyway, the 盆菜 was something we brought back from Singapore in Dec. The brand is 'Skylight' and it comes in a big can. Ingredients include 8 small abalones, mushrooms, fish collagen, bamboo shoots and dried scallops. Just nice for 4 persons as a starter and it tasted really good. Easy preparation as well. Boil the mixture (w/o abalones) & you're good to go. For a price of S$70, I highly recommend it.

The other can of premium mexico abalone was meant for the steamboat. I absolutely love it. Mum knows I love abalone so she always stuffs me with a few cans every time I'm back. ~S$80 Try it if you're in Singapore; I think she gets them from NTUC. Other ingredients we prepared for the steamboat include beef & pork slices, salmon, liver, shitake mushrooms, golden mushrooms, radish, cabbage and egg. Perhaps could do better with prawns, scallops and fishballs?

The meal would have been more complete with 鱼生 though. Anne if you're reading this, 鱼生 (yu sheng) is a dish we eat many times throughout the 15 days of celebration. It's sort of a huge vegetable salad with raw fish slices or abalone as the only meat. Every ingredient in this dish has a special auspicious meaning. Before eating, everyone at the table will grab their chopsticks, tuck into the platter, and raise the food as high as they can. That's a prosperous gesture too and all the ingredients get mixed at the same time!

Left: 鱼生 for last year's reunion dinner. That's my mum and grandma :)
Right: Random photo of random people I took from the internet to show you how it's done

[source:http://www.pbase.com/victor_chowloon/image/39747204]

Maybe next time!