Yr of The Ox Celebrations - Part 3

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Valentine's Day is not just for lovers but all who love. Hope you have a great day with your loved ones.

My parents decided to host a dinner on the 6th day of CNY, i.e. pre-"Human B'day" (人天) celebration of sorts. The dinner was simple but my Mom spent much of the day cooking up a storm while I slaved away at the computer trying to complete the project. **grrrr**

My relatvies dropped by the house and since the family has grown quite large, we had to setup two large tables in our very small dining area. Aunty Mag is busy plating the vegetables while Aunty Julie watches on. I think she couldn't wait to attack the food liao.

The "foo chok" or beancurd skin had to be soaked first as this ingredient will be part of the vegetarian dish. Beancurd skin tastes yummy when it's deep fried too. ;-)

The preserved or "waxed" duck or 腊鸭 had to be "rejuvenated" by being cooked in boiling water. Besides softening the meat, the excess salt can be discarded in this manner. Once the meat is soft enough, the duck is steamed alongside fresh chicken and chinese sausages. Some chinese cooking wine is added to enhance the flavours too.

The result of the steamed chicken with 腊鸭 and chinese sausages. Quite tasty. No extra salt is required as the salt from the duck has flavoured the dish.

Fried roasted pork in dark soya sauce and onions. This is a sweet dish where sugar and onions are caramelized with roasted pork. Dark soya sauce adds a hint of saltiness and balance to the dish. A hit with the family. We had to fight for our share as this was a limited resource.

My mom's first (and hopefully not last) attempt at making salted egg yolk prawns. The prawns turned out to be too wet. Wonder if we should have put some flour to make the dish a bit more dry? This dish is quite popular at seafood restaurants like King Crab. My bro-in-law's favourite dish for the night.

A Malaysian feast is never quite complete without some curry. My mom hails from a proud Nyonya heritage and decided that we must have a curry dish. This is curry fish where we add brinjals (or aubergines depending on which part of the globe you're at) and lady's fingers (or okra...). My aunt cooked this dish and forgot to add salt! She has hypertension and can't take much salt. For me, I found it to be just right as I'm used to having reduced salt food.

Well, with all that meat, we must have some vegetables to balance the "accounts". LOL!! So, a simple dish of braised osyter mushrooms and "bak choy".

Snoopy the greedy dog trying to get some human food! Rusty was stuck in his cage!

We spent the rest of the evening just lazing around watching the TV. It happened to be the Australian Open time and my uncles were busy watching the semi-final match where Nadal played against Verdasco. Thank goodness they didn't want to karaoke this time!

My CNY wasn't as fantastic as this year's was as a few colleagues and I had to really slave over our work for our overseas client. Nevertheless, we made sure that we had spent some time with family and friends during the festive season. For some, this is the only time they would spend with their relatives as most folks move to KL to work.

So, that's it for CNY 2009! Hopefully, the year will start off well and end with a bang! :-)