Road To CNY Reunion Dinner 2018
For Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner this particular year, I had lobbied for steamboat at home, which was pretty ironic as I am not exactly what you might call a "huge fan" of steamboats - particularly because I am a pretty slow eater (compared to folks at the dinner table), and I do not want to be left jostling for food to self-cook-eat, and am also not a huge fan of broths and the general heat that comes along with steamboat applications.
Luckily, it was decided by the Heng Fam to steamboat at home, using a brand new appliance, and a concept of keeping food streamlined, with a focus on sauces for dipping.
Every year dad and mum - when we ate at home - would slumped over cooking for CNY Eve Dinner, most times starting late into the evening, and the mountain of dishes was always daunting, as were the hills of leftover food stuffing the refrigerator afters.
Since dad's passing, I personally would not want to see mum work too hard in the kitchen, although I would understand she, and dad before, had tried to keep certain traditions intact, for the auspiciousness of the Heng household. Certain foods like steamed fish was a MUST, most times because of their Chinese pronunciation in connection with auspicious words in Mandarin - again I am okay with, and never against said traditions.
For this year, we've decided to "re-interpret" the notions for certain food stuff - like for example the (pre-cooked and plated) "steamed fish" will be replaced with (frozen) fish slices, cooked in steamboat ... essentially everything to be cooked in the steamboat, and no much "pre-cooked", doing away with the need to prep+cook in the kitchen hours before the dinner.
SAUCES: The theory was to make ourselves 4 to 5 different sauces for dipping, including a sesame cream sauce (purchased), sweet/sour/spicy Thai-styled, something Korean-tasting, Satay-gravy, and either ketchup (boring) or Keycap Manis (much better!) ... we didn't mange to get the peanut gravy alas...
One of the key things we had hoped to achieve, was yummy food with minimal leftovers. Bought beef and pork strips, fish, squid, prawns, lefty vegg, dumplings and prawns, essentially leaving out the toufus, fishballs, and the like.
The result is yum, and I would heartily try it again next year, but maybe we'll try different sauces LOL
One aspect of CNY Reunion Dinner that has since been adopted in recent years, was having "Lou Hei" - sort of like an opening appetiser to the main event/steamboat!
And this year particularly, pre-packed Lou Her ingredients were readily sold in local supermarkets, in sheer abundance! Very much different than LAST YEAR'S, where stock ran out before Eve (we even bought one for home a few days after CNY :p) ... BUT, the trick was, the ingredients came without the shredded radish, cucumber or carrots!
Saving grace was NTUC, who had the foresight to provided pre-packed, pre-shredded ingredients - which folks where literally hunting for - that could be kept refrigerated for a short span of time, and devoured readily when it was time.
Salmon sashimi was readily available (neither as cheap or as "fresh") pre-packed at the local supermarket as well, so really, we didn't need to travel too far for ingredients, being the spoilt Singaporeans we are in our small island country LOL
Bon Appétit!
Andy
(Hashtagged on Instagram: #roadtoreuniondinner2018)
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