Cameron Highlands Tea Plantation, Malaysia

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Reunion dinner


I've been over indulging on food lately, like there is no tomorrow. I guess during Chinese New Year, it is virtually impossible for all of us not to overeat and to avoid weight gain, right? But no matter how much I exercise, that bulging tummy seems determined to stay on me. DUH!

I was extremely busy preparing food for the CNY's eve. As always, I'd usually do all the cooking and my sister in law in the house would help. I've to confess I am pretty lazy when it comes to cooking, especially on a big day like CNY. But then, all relatives would gathered at my MIL's place for a steamboat reunion dinner on Chinese New Year's Eve. Here we are, it's that time of the year again where everyone enjoys a great get together and the children gleefully accepting angpows (the amount of money they get in red packets).

The fun part of having steamboat is when everyone digs in to fish out the ingredients of their choice from the bubbling stock. Somehow, it took us more than half a day to prepare the ingredients and cooking. The ingredients were easily available at the wet markets and supermarkets but the tasks of preparing them seemed to be laborious. The chicken stock entailed a lot of work with all the ingredients simmering in the pot for hours to get that rich and tasteful flavour. Some of the food items to savour include prawns, squids, clams, fillet chicken, fish, vegetables, fish maw, mushrooms, abalones, and some assorted fishballs. Yup, nothing beats having the fragrant aroma of the items sizzling hot from the wok. Emmm, yummy......

I hope everyone had a fabulous time during the CNY season and another great week ahead...

14 comments:

  1. I love having s steamboat dinner for family gathering. It is so much fun. :-)

    Hope you had a fun CNY celebration!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steamboat is really nice! But I thought it's quite easy to prepare as you can buy all those raw ingredients. You just need to make a nice soup. Well, I sucks at cooking so I shall not comment too much on that! LOL!

    But I agree with you - why cook on CNY day or even on the eve? It's supposed to be a day to be enjoyed. Leave the cooking out! Unless you love cooking of course! : )

    ReplyDelete
  3. hehehe... steamboat is a popular dish for reunion dinner ... seems like lots of people have steamboat :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mmmmmmmm steamboat!! My hubby's fave is Johnny's...steamboat is always nice to eat esp when I feel like something soupy! This one sure looks yum! :):):)

    ReplyDelete
  5. hi lina,
    steamboat never fails to stimulate my appetite and it's a fun event where your fave contents are tossed out.

    ReplyDelete
  6. foong,
    I've to confess that I prefer to eat rather than cook esp when it comes to a big day like CNY. preparation is time consuming bcoz it involves alot of cutting, slicing, frying some ingredients and cleaning. It's a big deal preparing for a big crowd so i need to ensure everything is thumbs up. CNY dinners can be ridiculously expensive...... nobody wants to foot the bill so i need to be the chef every year :(

    ReplyDelete
  7. hi tz,
    yup, it's been a tradition to have steamboats on such occasions.

    ReplyDelete
  8. mariuca,
    sounds great. must try johnny's someday.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What can we do? We live to eat during CNY mah! haha =) Anyway happy chinese new year to you. Gong Xi Fatt Cai.

    ReplyDelete
  10. hi tekkaus,
    i totally agree with u. let's eat n eat till we drop. :D :D

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think is a good idea to have steamboat for reunion dinner, simpler and not so messy, not too much of cleaning up. I will suggest to my mum next year.
    Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  12. hi molly,
    one thing's 4 sure is steamboat does not leave oily streaks in the kitchen after many hours of cleaning. The beauty about having steamboat is you can use whatsoever ingredients.

    ReplyDelete
  13. That looks like an amazing steamboat. Bet it's delicious too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. hi YTSL,
    yes it is. i've always fancy my own version of steamboat. hehe

    thanks for visiting.

    ReplyDelete