Gong Xi Gong Xi

Here's to a happy and blessed year of the ox. Xin Nian Kuai Le!

On the Reunion Dinner Menu

Over the weekend, I was back home together with Sis to help Mom to make ngoh hiong for reunion dinner. It's been years since Mom has made them because it's so much work - all that chopping and dicing, then you got to roll up the meat mixture in the tau kee.

Mom had wanted to have reunion dinner in a restaurant this year because it's too tiring for her to prepare dinner. We have had steamboat at home for reunion dinner for years, and the thought of going to a restarant, with the time limits and shifts, feel so impersonal. So Sis and I volunteered to help her out this year (I know, in the past years, we just show up and eat. :p ). And we requested to have ngoh hiong. I love mom's ngoh hiong because I love the crunchy water chestnuts she always adds inside. So my job this time was to dice this time round was to dice the water chestnuts and roll it all up. It was actually pretty satisfying to be doing this together as a family. Even my nephews helped by pounding the biscuit crumbs.


This is the steamed ngoh hiong, all ready to be fried for reunion dinner this Sunday. As you can see, it's not very round or even, but we don't know why. In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

Over-feasted

It's only the fifth day of the Lunar New Year and I already feel like I over-feasted. Steamboat dinners, yu-sheng, chilli crabs, and abalone with instant noodles. Not to mention loads of almond cookies (from Le Cafe) and pineapple tarts. I want to stop already. How is it possible to feast for 15 days? There's one more dinner tonight. Thank goodness it's for work and a stand-up dinner. It's hardly possible for them to keep piling on your plates and offering food. I hope so. You can only say no so many times without seeming rude. I'm glad I'll be wearing my A-line cheongsam. At least, it will hide the over-feeding.

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Update

I have one food pix after all. This shows some of the food my Mom prepared for the reunion steamboat dinner. The box with dark red stuff on the right is liver marinated with wine. Slurpp!! The fav of all the men - braised meat - was not on the table yet.