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CHINESE NEW YEAR 2007


aznsailorboi

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We'll be having our big meal on the 17th, New Year's eve rather than NY's day - to accommodate older son's bday, and the two younger kids who head back to Winnipeg on the 18th.

Um, isn't the dinner usually held on the eve? That's how it's done with my family anyway.

May

Totally More-ish: The New and Improved Foodblog

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Yeah, most families do the gathering on Chinese New Year's eve. That's the main event. You can also do one on the day of but it's the eve that's the most important. "Chaow neen", something akin to Thanksgiving dinner in America but with alot more significance. Like you'd better be on the other side of the world stranded on a desert island if you can't make it significance.

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Yep...it's so important that, though I don't belong to the Eve meal, being married 'out' and all that, my mother is specially changing the meal to lunch (steamboat) since my MIL is having a potluck dinner, both with untraditional menus. Who doesn't like CNY? It's 15 days of living and travelling from one special meal to another. :wub:

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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.... Who doesn't like CNY? It's 15 days of living and travelling from one special meal to another.  :wub:

15 days? :blink::blink: Really?

OMG... Oh, this is the year of the pig! :shock::smile::smile: Just kidding.

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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In my family, New Year's eve is for savory tong yuen. There is so much ingredients in that it's like a banquet! Mom will have sam sang for worshipping the Teen Sun, but they don't eat it for supper. NY'd Day is the big meal, and I don't get to partake. :sad: On the 2nd, I will go "by neen" with my big bag of apples, oranges, candies and some kind of pastry. Mom just invited hubby and me to the lunch that day!

I know my s-i-l always try to get some smaller chickens for CNY. There are only 3 of them at home, and Mom insists on 3 "new chickens" for all each day of her rituals. By the end of the week, they are pretty tired of chicken. :laugh:

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Our big dinner is usually celebrated on the day. A smaller low-key is held on the eve. Interestingly, CNY is the only day of the year that we sat down for breakfast together. I remember going to sleep to the smell of the ha peens being fried, and waking up to the smell of lawbok gao. We'd greet our parents with gung hay fat choy, and sit down to lawbok gao, fat chee, and sui gok(?)--while eagerly waiting for our hung baos.

It'll be different this year, since CNY eve falls on my brother-in-law's birthday, and my sister wants to throw him a banquet. So we're having a family dinner (sans my favorite niece, who will be in France) on the eve, and dinner in a restaurant on the day of.

Karen C.

"Oh, suddenly life’s fun, suddenly there’s a reason to get up in the morning – it’s called bacon!" - Sookie St. James

Travelogue: Ten days in Tuscany

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.... Who doesn't like CNY? It's 15 days of living and travelling from one special meal to another.  :wub:

15 days? :blink::blink: Really?

OMG... Oh, this is the year of the pig! :shock::smile::smile: Just kidding.

:laugh: The pig features at every CNY. (Chinese) Man and piggie nature are inseparable! :biggrin:

Human = eat + sleep + work + enjoy

Pigs = eat + sleep

Hence, Human = Pigs + work + enjoy

...if, Human - enjoy = Pigs + work

in other words, Human that don't know enjoy = pigs that work

Men = eat + sleep + earn money

Pigs = eat + sleep

Hence, Men = Pigs + earn money

...if Men - earn money = Pigs

...in other words, Men that don't earn money = Pigs

Women = eat + sleep + spend

Pigs = eat + sleep

Hence, Women = Pigs + spend

...if, Women - spend = Pigs

...In other words, Women that don't spend = Pigs

Summary:

Men earn money not to let women become pigs!

Women spend not to let men become pigs!

Men + Women = 2 Pigs

Let's pig out! :wacko:

Edited by Tepee (log)

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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I was all excited about my CNY plans until I came here to find out everything I was planning is untraditional. I've been watching Kylie Kwong and her book is on the way from Amazon. I want to make her shrimp wontons with hot and sour sauce and as per recommendation upthread I'll steam a whole fish. Of all the cuisines I've cooked professionally, this is one that's new to me and that I love to eat above all others. Well, Chinese and japanese really. Remember the Eat Right for Your Blood Type craze a few years ago? It said all the traditional ingredients are bad for this B positive. I'll live dangerously.

Lisa K

Lavender Sky

"No one wants black olives, sliced 2 years ago, on a sandwich, you savages!" - Jim Norton, referring to the Subway chain.

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I was all excited about my CNY plans until I came here to find out everything I was planning is untraditional.

Does it really matter, though? Unless you're cooking for group of Chinese diners and have promised them a traditional dinner I doubt they would even know the difference.

Edited by sheetz (log)
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I was all excited about my CNY plans until I came here to find out everything I was planning is untraditional.

So, enquiring minds want to know your CNY plans!

Just remember, FOOD is the tradition! :biggrin:

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

The eGullet blog team has invited me to write a week-long foodblog, starting today. I thought you may like to read, or comment on my blog. I am blogging food and events related to Chinese New Year:

eG Foodblog: hzrt8w, A week of Chinese New Year celebration

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Chinese new year lunch tomorrow, as it happens, by accident rather than design, weird menu as so many people to please.

boneless pigs feet with garlic sauce

Roast duck and jellyfish salad

grilled baby squid with lime and chilli(not too chinese!)

dry cooked bamboo shoots

sichuan cucumbers

dry fried pork with sesame

Peking duck

Beef with oyster sauce(and oyster mushrooms)

Pork 'with fish flavour'

dried squid with chilli

gai laan with ginger-wine sauce

lotus leaf rice

belly pork with muichoi

steamed turbot

salt-baked chicken

lime sorbet.

lots of work for the cook!

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Cooked in the oven in a salt crust, inside a cast iron casserole. I use egg whies with the salt, not too authentic, but good and spectacular. With the great Cantonese chicken dishes, though, all depends on the quality of the bird, and I have a Poulet de Bresse :biggrin:

Edited by muichoi (log)
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Ah Leung, is there a version of "salt baked chicken" that is steamed?????

I steamed mine sometimes. Marinated with the salt-baked chicken power the same way but steamed. Just being lazy.

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Koong Hei Fatt Choy!! Would have posted earlier but I haven't been home much, shunting between the in-law's and my parent's home....eating. Here's some pix from yesterday's steamboat lunch at my parent's. A very simple one. But full of hei fun as all members from 3 generations were present. Taufu and prawns not shown...was busy eating.

Yee Sang - Raw Fish Salad

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TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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Sorry for zipping through... ok, I'll slow down a little to describe the dishes. This was the eve's potluck dinner at MIL's. We already had a traditional meal exactly a week before when 2nd SIL was around.

2nd eldest BIL's contribution...more yee sang. I don't mind, because I love it.

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Eldest BIL cooked this prawn dish. He had some very superior-sounding name for it...can't remember it, though.

393996561_cc4162773f_o.jpg

MIL made this black bean chicken.

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Blanched bok choy also contributed by MIL. Oh, she did a sour soup too, with lots of goodies in it...no pix.

393996559_f35e0e02f6_o.jpg

Eldest SIL made this arrowhead dish.

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Last but not least, our contribution. No, we didn't cook it, this was a quarter roast lamb with their special rice from a saudi arabian restaurant. The lamb is absolutely delicious with meat so flavourful and tender that there is a reverent silence when all of us were eating it.

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Youngest BIL contributed wine and beer and we had ice-cream and lychee drink for dessert.

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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LOL, at the end of this, you'll feel as 'full' as I am. Tonight, we had leftovers packed from both homes. Vegetarian meal as traditional in my parent's home on the first day of new year.

Jai

394028336_ccd942d46b_o.jpg

Dai-Gah Jeh...here's your prawns. Bought.

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Delicious curry made by mom. She made a stock out of soy beans and something else to give the curry more flavour.

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Sweet and Sour...piggie

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Sausages and char siu

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Goose

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OK, that's it....I've hogged the computer long enough. Kids want their turn.

Edited by Tepee (log)

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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