CNY 2011 - Chinese New Year of the Rabbit

Chinese New Year has always been my favourite time of the year. When I was younger, it was because of the hongbao I'm gonna receive and the new year goodies that I can stuff myself with. Now its because we meet up with family and friends that we hardly see throughout the year and the yummy feasting.

Despite this year being the perfect days in terms of calendar (two public holidays followed by the weekend), I felt it seems to be more tiring than last year. Probably because we have to watch over Xavier during the house visitings like a hawk, stopping him from running and jumping all over the visiting house, eatting the goodies and drinking cold drinks as he just recovered from cough.

Tossing Yu Sheng at my 大舅舅 place is usually one of the highlights of the first day of Chinese New Year. This is usually done after feasting on numberous yummy dishes cooked up by various relatives. The energy level of this year's tossing is lower than usual as it was done at almost midnight. Note for next year, remind my mum to bring the yu sheng earlier.


Before the night ends, we would take family portraits for memory sake.

More visiting on Day 3, this time to cousin Harry's new house. It's nice to meet up with cousins that we haven't meet for some time over more yu sheng.

Here's a short clip on Xavier doing his Gond Xi Fa Cai.


How I wish Chinese New Year would last longer. More photos can be found at my Flickr.

Yu Sheng

I love Yu Sheng (发财鱼生). I feel it's the one dish that really symbolise Lunar New Year. You can find Bak Kwa, Pineapple Tarts and Love Letters any time of the year but Yu Sheng only appears during the first 15 days of Lunar New Year.

And I have the privilege of eating really yummy home-made Yu Sheng prepared by my parents. The ingredients for Yu Sheng are really simple. The ingredients my parents use this year are:

鱼生             Yu Sheng
柚子             Pomelo
红萝卜          Carrot
白萝卜          White Radish
青萝卜          Green Radish
七彩锦菜丝    Preserved Mixed Melon
碧绿瓜英丝    Preserved Melon Strip
正宗中国茶瓜 Cucumber Strip
酸姜丝           Pickled Ginger Shredded
红姜丝           Red Ginger Shredded
桔饼丝           Shredded Kit Pan
柠檬瓜丝        Preserved Lemon
海蜇丝           Shredded Jelly Fish
薄脆              Crispy Cracker
鱼生胡椒粉     Pepper Powder
鱼生五香粉     Five Spice Powder
鱼生花生碎     Grounded Peanut
鱼生炒芝麻     Sesame Seed
鱼生酱           Yu Sheng Sauce
梅酱               Plum Sauce
柠檬酱            Lemon Sauce

The process of preparing the Yu Sheng is fairly tedious. I know because years ago I helped them before. They would shred the carrot, white radish and green radish, grind the peanuts, and peal the pomelo  themselves. It's hard work. My parents have "upgraded" to a semi-automatic machine that now requires them to turn a lever to shred the carrots and radish. And this year they buy items six onwards ready-made from Tungsan Food Industries (I got the names of the items from their pricelist so if it sounds funny, dun blame me). Many have replaced the raw fish in the Yu Sheng with fancier alternatives like Salmon, Salmon Belly, or even Abalone.

My parents love to decorate their Yu Sheng. This year being the year of the Rabbit, my parents made a rabbit with the white radish. The bigger version is the first photo you see above and the smaller version is below.

Homemade Popiah Party

I have received a number of encouraging comments for my food photos, most of them saying it made them hungry. That put a grin on my face as the photos had to be reasonably good to make you hungry right?

My mother's side of the family are quite closely knit and almost every Saturday would be a mini gathering. I remember going to my Grandmother's place at Queensway almost every Saturday to catch up with all the uncle aunties and of course to be treated to great food.

The venue has now changed to my big uncle's house but one thing never change, the presence of good food and great company. Though Lilian and I have not been going as often for the "weekly gathering", Popiah Party is never to be missed.

Good popiah party are hard to come by due to the huge amount of preparation work needed to prepare the ingredients. These includes lettuce leaves, grated carrot (by far the hardest to prepare), shredded omelette, bean spouts, prawns, hot chilli (sometimes makes or breaks a popiah), sweet dark sauce and grounded peanut. And when these are homemade, the popiah would often be so filled with ingredients that wrapping it becomes a challenge.

Different people have different ways of making their popiah and there is no right or wrong. I usually do mine on two Popiah skin (slightly apart so I can create a bigger popiah). I then put the lettuce on one end and start piling on the other ingredient starting with the grated carrot and ending with peanut over the sweet sauce.

Wrapping also requires speed and skill, expecially when I usually filled it like its gonna explode on first bite. Sometimes I even leave one end open while holding it vertical so I can pile more ingredients thru the opening. Greedy.

Below are some of the other stuff present at the table. The homemade wu xiang on the right and the tuna on the left were so good they were all gone before the end of the dinner. There were also yummy apple crumble bought by Rachel. Hope they made you hungry as well.