Chinese New Year Dinner Part 2: The Meal

Remember when Chinese New Year happened in mid-February, I prepared a dinner in late February and then blogged about shopping for it in early March? Well my roommate Jane finally got her photos up, and it's taken me another two weeks to finally put them up here and talk about them.

The photo at the top is the full spread. Clockwise from the top: BBQ pork and soya sauce chicken from Épicerie A Lam Kee, stir-fried Chinese broccoli with garlic and ginger, Half of a steamed winter flounder, and little abalone with Chinese spinach.

Chinese broccoli has been one of my favourite vegetables since I was young (for a very huge chunk of my life it was THE favourite, but since I rarely have the chance to buy it in Montreal and I seem to not make it as well as my mom does, it has fallen out of favour) Although it's called Chinese broccoli, it's more leafy and stalky than broccoli. There's also something about the florets that makes them super flavourful. Super-easy to prepare (even though somehow I still screw it up): Trim the veggies, blanche them in boiling water with sugar and oil added in, then stir-fry with garlic and ginger. Serve with oyster sauce.

The winter flounder was the cause of a lot of stress. First I wasn't sure if flounder would be good steamed (fortunately it was), then the flounder I bought was too big for my steamer so I didn't know what to do! After consulting with Jane, and calling my mom in Calgary, it was decided that I'd cut it in half and steam each half separately. Also super-easy. For a bigger fish it could be suggested that you cut slits into it to increase the surface area, but in this case I just layered the sliced ginger and green onion (thanks Jane for slicing it finely for me!) on the fish before putting it in the steamer. While that was happening, I heat up some oil in a pan so I could pour it on the fish along with the soya sauce when it was ready (I don't know something my mom told me to do--I now realize it's pretty heart-unhealthy so I just skip the oil step and pour soya sauce over by itself)

The fish was preggers and so we had to pick out its eggs, but other than that it was good.

The abalone and spinach was also easy (I was making three dishes here, everything better be easy!) Mainly because the abalone came from a can (that my mom bought for me when she found out I was hosting this) I basically just poured the abalone (liquid and all) into the wok and let the liquid reduce a bit before adding some cornstarch to thicken it and oyster sauce for flavour. While that was happening I blanched the spinach so it could have a bed of veggies to be presented on.

For dessert we had New Year cake. My mom and I made it in Calgary before I flew back to Montreal with it. I was originally going to post the recipe but it's so long that I don't remember (sorry!) It has this sticky, chewy consistency because it's made with glutinous rice flour and a LOT of sugar. The variation that my mom and I made used coconut milk, while others use brown sugar, giving it a yellowish appearance. I still have some in my fridge, as gross as that probably is... will definitely post up the recipe for... next Chinese new year?