Our yearly once-a-year Chinese New Year Eve's reunion dinner will usually be held at my Aunt's place. Yes, the Aunt I blogged about when I visited here on every Saturday. She loves it when the house is super merry, unlike on usual days when she is alone. This year, it was yet another super merry and joyful noise at her house on the Chinese New Year Eve on 9th February.
This year, we decided to do potluck version for our reunion dinner — a few of us contributed a dish instead of all the dishes cooked by my Aunt.
Our Food Spread!
Just look at these... I think we all did a great job! We all arrived earlier, then we set up the table. Let's start with the dishes cooked by my Aunt.
Pork with Arrowhead Bulb
Arrowhead bulb or we called it 'ngaku' in our language is one of the must-have food during Chinese New Year. We usually eat 'ngaku' chips but my Aunt loved to use it as replacement for potatoes to cook this yummy dish using pork, 'ngaku' and leeks. Super flavourful and the pork meat was soft and tender.
Chicken with mushrooms and red dates
Another delicious dish cooked by my Aunt was this braised chicken with mushroom and red dates, one of her favourite Hakka dishes to cook for us. The mushrooms were so soft and appetising (if you loved mushrooms) and the chicken was soft, all natural sweetness from red dates. I super loved this dish.
Chinese Liver Sausage and Pork Sausage
We called these cured meat 'lap cheong'. The lighter red ones were usual cured minced pork with pork fat. The darker ones were cured pork liver with alcohol. Super duper appetising. I actually could just eat this non-stop with rice.
My Aunt cooked two pots of rice too, with added cinnamon sticks. She used mixture of basmathi rice and brown rice.
Stir Fry Jicama with Cuttlefish
My mother-in-law cooked this one — stir fry jicama with strings of dried cuttlefish, she learned it from her mother, another great Chef. This dish is the quintessential festival dish for my in-law's side. Usually, we ate this with Lettuce wrap and sambal. It consisted of shredded dried cuttlefish, jicama and pork slices. If not mistaken, my mother-in-law also added slices of Chinese mushrooms and dried prawns and fried shallots. Very delicious!!!
Steamed Tilapia
I contributed two plates of Chinese steamed tilapia fish with ginger and scallion. Super easy to cook but so very flavourful and nutritious. Not to mention, it was no-mess cooking too and the ingredients were cheap.
Mixed Vegetables with mushrooms and abalone
All the dishes became better with this dish, our dish of the night which had greens. My sister-in-law cooked this and I loved it so much. So refreshing to eat vegetables. She added mushrooms and abalones for us and even arranged it beautifully, just like those served in Chinese restaurant. Thumbs-up to her. The sauce of the dish was flavourful too. Yums!
After dinner, we spent some more time at the sofa area chit-chatting. The kids were in the room happily playing. I continued to munch all the Chinese New Year snacks on the table, haha. We ended our night with prayer from father-in-law to all the elderly in the house.
Also, a group photo — a must!
Meanwhile, my side of family, all the Lee's gathered at my house for sumptuous home cosy Steamboat. I reached home and I had another round because they all said my Mum and I bought too much ingredients, lol! I wondered how come my stomach expanded double size.
It may seem like the food looks really good, but family togetherness makes it even better.
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