Gong Xi Fa Cai !!

OK so it’s been a while since I last posted, but I wanted to let you know about Chinese New Year that happened way back in February and of course I felt the need to host a dinner party in honour of the event.

In the lead up Chinatown was the busiest I have ever seen it with people and red lanterns everywhere. It was such a nice atmosphere; I can barely imagine how crazy it must be in China! I had fun looking around at all the decorations about the place and even got two big red lanterns, which are still hanging in the living room, they look too nice to take down!

Well as you can imagine I spent quite some time planning the menu. There are a number of traditional meals served at New Year; in fact food is a huge part of the celebrations. They have wonderful meanings such as serving longevity noodles, long un-cut noodles that signify a long life and a prosperous year ahead. Also served are foods which the pronunciation sounds similar to other words in the Chinese language, such as fish which sounds like [x]. Then there are the foods that are just pure luxury, things like scallops and abalone. Also there are Lion’s Head Meatballs, so named as they are large pork meatballs served in a broth with Chinese cabbage placed around the meatballs to resemble a lion’s mane. Also Buddha’s delight, a vegetarian dish that originally contained one ingredient for each of the 18 Buddha’s, although I am told more often than not people pick and choose what they like. Another dish that sounded so good was White Cut Chicken, which is a whole chicken poached in a very simple broth, traditionally it is served with the head and feet to symbolise unity and the white colour represents purity. It was very hard to choose what to serve!

After putting a lot of thought into it I decided on the following menu:

To start:
Pork & prawn dumplings
Salt & pepper ribs
(I have to give thanks to Caroline & Neil for this as I didn’t have anything to do with it!)

Main:
Slow roasted pork belly
Soy poached chicken (I was going to make the white cut chicken but after a lot of reading I discovered it’s quite a difficult dish to master so I decided on a night I was cooking for 7 wasn’t the best time to try!)
Lionhead meatballs

Buddha’s delight
Gai larn with oyster sauce
Longevity noodles
Steamed rice

Now I can say that the night was a success and thankfully the food all turned out OK, it required me staying sober until everything was served but it was well worth the effort. I also recommend trying out the pork belly as it was the resounding hit of the night and was being talked about days later; it was also the only thing that was completely finished on the night! As per usual I also cooked enough food for a small army so leftovers were in abundance, which was fine with me as it meant a super tasty lunch on the Monday. If only there were leftovers every day. ox