This year mum and I decided to do a combined New Year lunch gathering to invite our relatives over for a festive lunch. We hope to take this opportunity to get touch and mingle with everyone since we seldom get a chance to eat together as a big group during normal days of the year.
As this was my first time cooking for 30 pax, I was pretty excited about the whole gathering and I also spent quite some time drafting the menu to cater for festive feel plus majority preference. And thanks God, everything went on smooth with surplus of food and everyone has a wonderful family bonding time together too.
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| Gift For Our Neighbour |
Beside the family gathering, every year we also prepared something as a token of appreciation for our neighbours. Being staying around my area for more than 10 years and we have two families of wonderful neighbours whom we always joke and chit chat whenever we see each other. And every year during Lunar New Year, Malay Hari Raya, Deepavali and Christmas season, we would exchange gifts and food together to soak in the festive atmosphere as well as appreciate each others culture and friendships.
FAMILY LUNCH GATHERING DURING
DAY 2 OF CHINESE LUNAR NEW YEAR
Above is my draft lunch menu which we also added a few last minute dishes in order to feed a group of 30 persons. And below are some foodporn of the dishes that we had during the lunch gathering.......
APPETIZER
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| {Appetizer} Spicy Top Shell |
Since I dont really fancy top shell, I have limited ideas on how to create a dish using this. But mum on the other hand loves to use this as side dish (Chinese Salad) together with some onion, cucumber and spicy sauce. And to enhance the taste, mum also added in some small chilli (diced) and crashed roasted peanut which makes it taste similar to Thai-style salad.
(Preparation: 10 minutes)
Ingredients:
3 Cans of Top Shell
2 Japanese Cucumber, skin removed
6 Calamansi (酸柑), halved and juice
6 Shallot, thinly sliced
1 Small Chilli, chopped
2 Tablespoons of Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce, optional
Some Roasted Peanuts (optional), roughly chopped
Method:-
1. Rinse and drain the top shell, thinly sliced and set aside.
2. Cut the cucumber into halve, lengthwise then sliced 0.5cm thick diagonally.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix together top shell, cucumber, shallot, chilli, calamansi juice, chilli sauce and some freshly ground black pepper together.
4. Season the taste with more calamansi juice/chilli sauce, top it with some crashed peanuts before serving.
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| {Appetizer} Yogurt With Mixed Fruit Salad |
For kids and those who dont like the Spicy Top Shell, I have prepared some Yogurt With Mixed Fruit Salad as alternative choice. This is a quick appetizer which you could easily whipped it up at home using assorted fruits of your choice like:- dragon fruit, apple, pear, avocado, orange, strawberry and etc. Mix the cut fruits with either flavoured yogurt or Greek yogurt for a thick and creamy texture.
MAIN DISH
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| {Main} Mini Buddha Jumps Over The Wall |
Buddha Jumps Over The Wall (佛跳牆) is made from numerous delicacies with more than 10 ingredients such as bamboo shoots, scallops, sea cucumber, abalone, shark fin, chicken, Jinhua ham, pork tendon, mushrooms and etc. These ingredients are then simmered over low heat for many hours with just the right amount of heat to achieve the irresistible taste of this traditional dish.
But on our end, instead of making this soup dish from scratch we shorten the cooking process by using ready bought "Buddha Jumps Over The Wall" soup broth. On top of it, we add in extra ingredients like abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw, scallops, chicken broth and etc to create our quick and easy Mini Buddha Jumps Over The Wall (迷你佛跳牆).
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| {Main} Longevity Noodles With Superior Broth |
You might find this "noodle dish" familiar because I have shared the recipe in my previous post on the Chinese Cooking Demo by Chef Eric Low.
For our version instead of using the traditional Longevity Noodles, we replaced it with Ee Fu Noodles and also add in Chinese Cabbage (Napa Cabbage) for extra sweetness.
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| {Main} Braised Pork Belly With Mushroom |
To pair with the steamed white rice, mum specially prepared this pot of Braised Pork Belly With Mushrooms which is well received and gone within minutes too.
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| {Main} Stir-fry Sweet Peas with Leek And Carrot |
A very "green veggie" dish that mum and I come up with using Sweet Peas, Celery, Chinese Leek, Mushrooms, Carrot, Wolfberries, Lily Buds and Chinese Preserved Sausage for extra seasoning flavour. Before serving, I also scattered some roasted cashew nuts on top for extra crunch too.
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| {Main} Baked Honey Chicken With Rosemary |
Instead of deep-fried chicken wings, I bought 2 kg of mid-joints to make 2 different recipes to cater for two groups of guests. First we had this Baked Honey Chicken With Rosemary which was savory and yet with hint of sweetness from the caramelized honey. Recipe can be found here.
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| {Main} Korean Spicy Chicken Wings |
Next for my cousins and aunties who are fans of Korean food and drama. I specially made this Korean Spicy Chicken Wings for them. Although mine were not as spicy and fiery as compared to those from Nene Chicken, but majority of them love my combi of using Gochujang paste, sesame seeds, grated ginger and etc which you could find my recipe here at one of my Korean Cooking Project post.
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| {Main} Hakka Style Rice Wine Chicken |
Traditional Hakka Style Rice Wine Chicken (黄酒鸡 ) (my recipe) made by my mother-in-law who is a typical Hakka lady whom is good in culinary skill. She has a lot good traditional recipe on Hakka delicacy such as Abacus Seeds (recipe), Steamed Pork Belly with Mui Choy (recipe), Soon Kueh and etc which I still learning and try to make it simple to share the recipes in my website with those who are keen in trying those dishes.
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| {Main} Homemade Assorted Mini Pizza |
Everyone loves pizza especially those with lot of cheese and pipping hot ones that are just out from the oven. In order to speed the preparation and serve it hot, we used ready bought Pita Bread (thick crust) and Wholemeal Wraps (thin crust) from supermarket to use as the pizza base.
Its so fun creating our own pizza using ready bought pizza base (put in the fan-force oven for about 3 minutes till slightly crisp before use), pizza sauce (I used tomato base spaghetti sauce) , sausage, pineapples, capsicums, shredded mozzarella cheese, prawns, tomato, mayo tuna and etc as the toppings.
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| {Main} Assorted Finger Food |
Party cannot do without fingers food like nuggets, chicken gyoza, fish balls, sotong balls, hotdog, sausages and etc as these are the all time favourite for both kids and adults.
DESSERT
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| Assorted Drinks |
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| {Dessert} Osmanthus And Chestnut Koi Jelly |
I love dessert so for this New Year gathering, I made some Koi and Ingot Jelly using Konnyaku Jelly Powder plus Osmanthus Flower and Water Chestnut. You can read more on how to make this auspicious jelly at the recipe post here.
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| {Dessert} Longan And Cranberry Yogurt Cake |
For cake I also made two different flavour to cater for the group of old and young. And since it was the 2nd day of Lunar New Year, I decided to bake my new inspiration which was the Longan And Cranberry Yougrt Cake. I really love this new flavour which is moist, fluffy and full of flavour from the dried longan, cranberry, cointreau and chia seeds. Give this a try if you love orange flavour cake with dried fruits in it.
Recipe is available at this link here.
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| {Dessert} Double Chocolate Yogurt Cake |
Chocolate lover would love this because I use 70% dark chocolate plus chocolate chips and Valrhona Dutch Process Cocoa Powder to make this moist and rice chocolate cake. To enhance the texture of the cake, Greek yogurt and fresh orange juice were also added into it.
Ingredients: (makes 2 small loaf tins, 17cm x 8cm x 6cm)
175g Unsalted Butter, room temperature
200g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs, 60g each
200g Self Raising Flour
45g Valrhona Cocoa Powder
100g Mini Chocolate Chips
40ml Orange Juice
200g Greek Yogurt
Method:-
1. Please refer to here for steps on making.
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| {Dessert} Baked Cheesy Nian Gao With Prata |
Apart from the cakes and jelly I also made this addicting snacks for the guests and they really enjoy it, especially for those kids who do not know how to appreciate "Nian Gao (年糕)" on its own. With this fusion method of wrapping traditional nian gao with shredded cheese using ready bought prata skin I am sure it would make a great snack for your visiting guests.
If you could not find prata skin, replace it with either puff pastry or spring roll wrapper (deep-fry the end product instead of bake) . But remember do not over-filled the wrapper with Nian Gao or else the parcel would burst during baking or cooking. Related recipe could be found at my recipe link here.
Lastly I would like to wish everyone a Prosperous and Happy Lunar New Year!
祝大家新年快乐，万事如意，蛇年行大运! 发发发!!!
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