Happy Chinese New Year!



Ok Belated, but this week was Chinese New Year and I had family in town to celebrate. Happy Year of the Rabbit. It's great having a house full of people and coming home to busy activity. Yes, it got old after a few days, but I had a good time with my family and hanging out with my new brother in-law. I apologize for the sparse posts and I do wish I had time for a bento but work is killing it for this next week I'm hoping to get back to it next week. Anyhow I figure I could at least post something.













So a big part of Chinese New Year is the feast. The idea of New Years is a large feast so that you don't cook for the following days. I've taken pictures of our feast and I'll share with you what we ate. We start with a happy family made with a meaty variety of squid and roasted duck.











Next we have a classic "cold plate" of beef tendon, sliced red roasted tenderloin, thousand year old egg, peel and eat shrimp, chinese sausage and quick pickled cucumber. Followed by sauteed baby bok choi.












Traditional New Years fare include noodles for long life (didn't get a picture). A rice flour based dessert because the name of the dessert has a double sounding meaning for yearly prosperity. We also always eat fish, proverb of yearly having "excess" the tradition dictates that we don't eat all of the fish to symbolize the excess. This stripe base is prepared with a simple poaching method that is finished with hot oil to bring out the aroma of the ginger and green onion. It's called "white water method".














Another special delicacy is Black Mullet roe. It's salted and dried and in the northern part of China, steamed and pan fried. What you see in the picture is a piece of roe that costs about $50 and not purchasable in the US (because part of the curing method uses saltpeter which is not FDA approved). I suspect that the curing method has been updated to include pink salt, (bacon use to be cured with saltpeter) anyhow needless to say this is hard to obtain and I horde it like precious gems in my freezer. We finish with the last plate of pan fried giant shrimp.

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